Did you get one? For chapter eight, speaking the truth in love. Let's look at that verse at the top there. Ephesians chapter four, verses 14 through 15. Says that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But, here's the contrast, here's what we can do. Speaking the truth in love. We may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ. We must be committed to speaking truth at all times. We cannot speak lies. Lies might be comfortable for a short period of time. People might appreciate lies. People might want to have you speak lies, but our commitment as Christians is to not speak lies, but to speak the truth. But we cannot speak the truth the wrong way. If you speak truth the wrong way, sometimes it's worse than lying. The Bible teaches us to speak the truth with love. We must speak the truth as we ought to speak the truth. And so, as he speaks here in this chapter, chapter eight, and the book is The Peacemaker by Ken Sandy. It's a tremendous resource, something that I've been encouraging you to purchase if you don't have a copy. But I hope this is a helpful thing. It's been so helpful for me to go back through this book carefully again. What he says, how do we do this? How do we speak the truth in love? By the way, go ahead and find a verse down here and look it up because we will be working through these verses and I like to keep it moving tonight if possible, get through as much as possible. Notice what we talked about earlier was that although words are often used in sin, words are absolutely required if we are going to be restoring people. So what he says is that we should bring hope through the gospel, we should not harp on the demands of the law. He says, rather than dwelling on what people should do or have failed to do, When you're restoring people, focus primarily on what God has done and is doing for them through Christ. And he gives two examples, really, in the Bible that he gives is, number one, Jesus with the woman at the well. What he focuses on is what God is doing in her. He doesn't harp on her failures. He mentions them. People have to see their failures in order to want to be saved. But he gives her, he points her to the living water, towards what God is going to do through her. The second interesting analogy he draws is in the Gospel, or in the books of Paul, that Paul writes, the letters that Paul writes. Now, if you do a study, you should do a study sometime, and I did this actually when we worked through Book of Romans. If you study Paul's letters, almost all of them, except 1 Corinthians is a little bit of an outlier in this, almost all of them are structured in two parts. The first half covers what? The doctrine, the gospel covers truth. So Ephesians chapters one through three, right? And then chapters four, five and six of Ephesians cover application, practical things. So doctrine and practice, the two sides are almost always covered. Romans is chapters one through 11, is almost all doctrine. Chapters 12 through 15 really, early chapter 16. implications. The way you can study this is I have a computer program where I can search different forms of the Greek verbs. I'll just do this for you sometime and show you graphs, but it's pretty cool. You can search Greek verbs in the imperative mood, which is a command, right? An imperative is a command like go or or believe, or speak, or whatever. And every single one of Paul's letters, there's like almost zero imperatives for the first however many chapters, and then boom! All of a sudden, the second half, there's tons of imperatives. And that's just a simple way of visualizing every one of Paul's letters does that. And that's what he says here, is that that Paul focuses this way. Instead of coming at them beginning with the implications, he begins with the gospel, with the truth. And after he presents the truth and after he presents the hope, then he tells them what their implications are from that. So bring the hope of the gospel, the hope that the gospel gives. Don't just burden people down with, you're a failure, you're a failure, you've failed to do this, or whatever. James 1.19, who can read that for us? James 1.19. Anybody got that verse? Yes, sir. That's okay, this is not a sword drill. That will come later in the year. Yes, sir. Okay, so the title of this section is Be Quick to Listen. Swift to hear. Okay, quick to listen. Let us be quick to listen. Why should we be quick to listen? Why is it that we need to be quick to listen to other people when we're dealing with them? The title of this message is Speak the Truth in Love. But before we should speak, we should be quick to listen. We should hear people. Number one, it improves your ability to understand others. If you can listen, you can help and understand other people. To understand other people, you have to listen to them. If you listen to them, you can understand where they're coming from. Hear them. There's nothing worse than you're trying to talk to somebody, and you can tell they're not listening. They have already decided what they're going to say to you. And if you are just hearing people talk to you, and you're already imagining what you're going to say to them, they can tell normally. So you need to intently listen to people. And it's amazing. When you listen to people, it makes a huge difference. It makes a huge impact on people. Conversely, I actually found, this is something my parents taught us when we were young, they taught us, they said, you know, most people are obsessed with themselves, and if you just ask them questions about themselves, they'll think you're great. This was a little, you know, if you want to get to know somebody, just ask them about themselves. Just ask them stuff, and they will talk about themselves. Most people will talk about themselves forever. And so that's one of my tactics for witnessing, is I just ask people questions about themselves until I learn a lot about them. And at some point, normally, at some point, they feel bad they haven't asked me anything about myself, and then I get a chance to share the gospel with them at that point. But really, listen, you will learn so much about people, and it is wonderful. to learn about others, you might actually catch yourself and choose a different tactic if you understand where they're coming from. Secondly, it shows you realize you don't have all the answers. This is one of the key reasons you should listen, is that none of us has all the answers. We should not approach a situation with our mind made up. We should come at every situation knowing that we don't have all the answers. You're not God, I'm not God, okay? God knows all things, I don't know all things. I have more than once gone to confront somebody over something and then realized in the process of dealing with them that I was the one who was wrong. That I had misread them or misunderstood them or I was being too petty or whatever and had to backtrack very quickly because I realized that. And I don't know if you've ever had that happen to you, but you probably have if you're open to that truth. Realize you don't have all the answers. Number three, it tells the other person you value his opinion. You demonstrate respect even if you don't agree you ought to listen to people So we ought to be quick to listen and and he mentions here There are several important listening skills that we ought to develop and so here they are Proverbs 18 13 who can read this verse for us jimmy. Go ahead He who answers a matter before he hears it it is folly and shame to him Okay, he who answers a matter before he hears, it's a folly and a shame to him. Number one is waiting. Okay, this is hard. Don't jump to conclusions. Don't jump to conclusions. If you answer before you hear, it's a folly and a shame. Don't jump to conclusions. Number two, don't interrupt. Now, I have a a footnote on this in my own mind in that I actually think sometimes it's okay to interrupt if you're trying to understand or clarify and you're talking to someone. Like, for example, if you come to my office and we have a discussion and it's a counseling session, I interrupt you all the time. I'm like, hold on, explain what you mean by that, or wait, stop. And I will actually do that on a regular basis. But that's because you're in my office and I'm your counselor. I don't think that always works if it's a conversation, if it's a dialogue. Remember, dialogue takes two people. Okay, monologue is one person. We're not about monologuing here where you just talk and talk and talk and talk. A dialogue takes two people. In order to listen, though, you should not interrupt them constantly. You should let them get their ideas out, and so you are waiting, you are listening to them. Number three, be comfortable with silence. It's one of the points he makes out. He makes that a lot of us are very uncomfortable when the room gets quiet. We want to fill the air. And sometimes the most effective way of listening and actually processing a thought is to just let it sit. So be okay with that. Be okay with silence. You don't have to constantly be talking. And number four he puts here under waiting is don't offer immediate solutions. Sometimes we need to sit on something, and these are all just wisdom issues here about immediate solutions, et cetera. Sometimes we need to sit on something. I'm bad about this. I like to have solutions like now. I like to say, okay, here's my answer to your problem. And that's just because I think I know what the answer is. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong, right? I mean, we've all been there, but the idea here is that you want to listen and you want to take your time, and you don't want to ruin your testimony with that person, okay? Any comments on that so far? Does that make sense, waiting? Don't answer a question before you hear it. The classic example of this is when someone says, I'm gonna stop you right there. Okay, here's your problem. And they just, they give you the answer to something. And you're like, that's not what I was saying. That's not where I was going. If you'd just waited, you know, let me finish what I was saying. I feel like that's people on the news, you know, let me finish, let me finish. So let people finish, let them talk, and then wait. Okay, attending is the second point here. He makes the point that the mind works faster than you can talk, so don't get distracted. When someone's talking to you, don't allow your mind to wander. Start formulating ideas in your head ahead of time, or start thinking about other things. Number two, he says maintain eye contact. When someone is talking to you, listen to them. That's hard to do, because sometimes it can come across the wrong way, but it's important to do, maintain eye contact. so that you are paying attention to them. Number three, avoid negative body language. Do you guys know what negative body language is? What would be some classic negative body language moves? There you go, everybody crossing your arms, right? Looking around, being distracted, looking down at your shoes. Even like the whole covering your mouth or covering your eyes or pulling your hair, what's that? Looking at your phone, that's a good one. Just today I was talking, we were helping out the Levisters, and I took Kevin with me, because Kevin's one of our interns, and so he was with me on the trip, and on the way back we were talking about it, and I said, we were late leaving because it took a long time, but I didn't even realize it because we had been so busy. And I told him, I said, one of the things I really try hard to do, one of my bad habits is I look at my watch and I don't, I don't mean it in a bad way, but I try really hard when I'm with people like that. I'm like, I'm not, I don't look at my watch. I don't know what time it is. I don't, I try not to find a watch or clock because if you look at your watch, you know what that tells people? It says, I'm on the clock, right? And you're on the clock. And I never, I don't really think of it that, I mean, it used to be when my wife and I were dating, I would have to take off my watch because she got so mad at me for looking at my watch. She's like, you and your stupid watch. You know, she's like, what are we done? Are we done talking now? Anyway, don't tell her I said that, but. But I have that problem, and that's my negative body language. And it's not intentional, but I know about it. And so when I really am thinking hard, I make a conscious effort to say, you know, I am not going to be ruled by my time. I'm not gonna be ruled by my watch. And if I'm late, I'm late, right? I have to deal with this situation here." And so we walked away. I was like, oh, I had no idea it was this late. And we had to call the office, say our meeting got postponed. And I told him, I said, I did not know what time it was because I knew that time was ticking, but I was like, I am not going to look at my watch. I am not going to look at my phone, right? So something like that. And there's all kinds of things. Just be open. Be open towards people, right? Very, very consciously be open to them. Try not to be closed. People will pick through that. Any comments on that? You know what I'm saying? You get that, right? Everybody understand what I mean? Okay, number four there, eliminate distractions. And this can mean anything like turning off your phone. Sometimes there's a TV on. or a computer on or something going on, music playing or something, or you need to walk outside, have a conversation, you need to get away to have a conversation. Eliminate anything that would be a distraction so that you can have a good attending listening. Number three, he mentions here clarifying questions. This is what I was mentioning about interrupting earlier. I like to ask clarifying questions. They're helpful. They show interest. They encourage openness. When you ask clarifying questions, it shows that you're actually tracking with what they're saying. Number one, two, three, four, reflecting. This just, again, this is if you're talking to someone and you say, let me see if I understand what you're saying. What you're saying is, and then you rephrase what they tell you in your own words, and that's called reflecting. And all you're doing is you're basically saying, am I understanding you properly? If they say no, that's not what I'm saying, then you need to do everything you can to understand them. And I've actually found that a lot of husbands and wives struggle with this, is that it's almost like they don't want to understand each other. They get entrenched in their argument, and it's like they mischaracterize each other rather than reflecting back and actually understanding what their partner or their spouse is saying. So reflecting is important, and then agreeing. Proverbs 15.31, does somebody have that verse for us? Somebody look that up yet? Okay, Tony. It's important to agree with your opponent, quote-unquote, with the person who you're listening to if this is a conflict situation, especially when you are wrong. Proverbs 15.31? Yeah, yeah. One who listens to life-giving rebuke will be what? at home among the wise." So, life-giving rebuke. We need to be open towards rebuke. One of the comments that he had in his book here is, a response is almost always better than a reaction. A response is almost always better than reaction. What does he mean by that? Okay, reaction is not thinking through it or giving any thought. Somebody else? Emotions drive a reaction. So it's not going to be the right response? Okay, evaluation. Yeah, so what is a reaction? There's like no thought and there's no evaluation. There's no time between the event and your response, right? It's like a boom. It's like something happens and you react. It's reaction. There's a little book called Your Reactions Are Showing. Have you ever seen that book? It's great. It's a little book. I used to give it out all the time. Your Reactions Are Showing is like how you react to things shows what you think. But a response means that you're taking in, you're processing, like Jimmy said, evaluating, processing, and then you have an output. And so being able to have interrupt your reactions, so you're not like, what is that a sign of? This is a terrible form of question because I'm so open-ended, but what is it a sign of when you can interrupt your thoughts and process them before you respond? That is a sign, I'm going to answer my own question, that is a sign of maturity, okay? Can children do this? Those of you who have kids are like, no, Like, you even ask them, why did you do that? They're like, I don't know. Like, they don't think about anything. They just do, right? Something happens and they respond, they react. Like, they just are constant reactionary mode. And a lot of adults are like that. They react, react. And that is a very childish, very undisciplined and unbiblical way of responding. So we need to be people who are responding, not just reacting. Okay, let's look at how he has the next part here after being quick to listen, so now we've gotten that taken care of. Be swift to hear, now slow to speak is our second section here. The tongue of the wise brings healing is how he titles this section. Who would like to read Galatians 5, 22 and 23? Chris Niffen. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. Gentleness, self-control against such things, there is no wrong. Very good. He says here, as we have seen throughout this book, peacemakers are people who breathe grace to others in the midst of conflict. He uses the phrase breathing grace, this idea of you're filled with grace, you breathe it out to others by confessing our wrongs, bringing them hope through the gospel, showing them their faults, and forgiving them as God has forgiven us. So everything we do has to be bathed in grace as we breathe out God's grace in our life. It ought to be a part of everything we do. Our 1 Corinthians 13.6. Who's got that one? Yes, sir. Go ahead. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. Number two is to make charitable judgments. Breathe grace, make charitable judgments. What does it mean to make a charitable judgment? Well, it means you're not going to assume, you're going to postpone judgment until you can accumulate or acquire all the necessary facts. You're not going to jump to conclusions. You're going to make charitable judgments. You're going to see the best in people. You're going to assume the best, right? Not assume the worst. There's a lot of things that are vague or hard to discern sometimes, and so when we are speaking, we need to make these judgments as charitably as possible. And then we've already mentioned this several times, but the next one is speak the truth in what? In love, speak the truth in love. Ephesians 4, 15, Philippians 2, 1 Thessalonians 5, all speak the truth in love. This next one doesn't have a Bible verse, but I think it's a very practical one. He says, talk from beside, not from above. Okay. What do you think he means by this? Talk from beside and not from above. Yeah, Chris. You don't have to look down on somebody, right? When you are helping someone, there are two ways of doing it. You can do it like, let me show you the right way to do this, also known as my way to do this, right? Or it can be like a corrective, or you're speaking like an authority figure, or it can be a come alongside, and let's talk about this. And you're going to find much more success coming beside someone and pointing them towards a solution than to come down upon them. And I think the model here is Galatians 6.1, that you which are spiritual, restore such a one with a spirit of meekness or gentleness, considering yourself. We don't come to people with pride, we come to them with humility. The next one is, help others examine the desires of their heart. That can be difficult to do, but we always ought to help others examine their desires. Get to the root, not just the fruit. of their behavior. This is only if they're open to doing this. It would be very difficult to do that if they're not. The next one is choose the right time and place. Timing is everything on this kind of stuff. Timing is everything. Choose the right time and place. You don't want to try to confront somebody or talk to them when it's... Like here's an example. When I come home from work and my wife is making dinner, and she's got kids running around the house. And some kids are crying because they still haven't finished school yet. And other kids are yelling because somebody broke something. This has never happened to your house. It only happens at my house, right? And these kinds of things are happening. And then I come in, and I say, and I have some, Jenna, I got to talk to you about something. I am not happy with blah, blah, blah. Is that the right time and place? Some of you husbands are like, nope, no, I've been there. It's the wrong time and place. How do we know it's the right time and place? Well, that's not it, right? Whatever the right time is, that isn't it. And we have a couple here in the church, I'm not gonna mention who they are, but they have a phrase they use, which I think is so amazing, which is they ask, they say, are you approachable right now? Some of you know who exactly I'm talking about. They say, are you approachable? That's such a great question. Because it is like you have the freedom to say, I'm really, really, no, not right now. I'm not ready. I'm not ready to have this discussion right now. I'd rather not. I'd rather us wait until I'm in a little better mood, until after I've eaten dinner, or until after the kids are in bed, or until the house is quieter, or until, you know, wives, I'll put it back on you, sometimes Sometimes your husband would be, let's just say it's playoff football season, and you go downstairs and you see your husband watching football on TV, and you're like, perfect, perfect timing. And you sit next to him and you're like, this is great. I get to cuddle up next to him and talk to him about our problems. And he's like, honey, this is not the time. There's a football game on. Now, does he love you more than football? He better. Absolutely. Of course he does. But you realize that it's important to be sensitive. If this is something that he is, it's not something that's on all the time, you know, and he's watching something, he doesn't do this a lot, you know, obviously every situation is different. But read the room. Be aware of what you're asking. of your spouse if you're going to sit down and talk to them or if, you know, catching someone in passing and confronting them is never a good idea either, right? Hey, let me talk to you for a second. Hey, when you dealt with me last week, that was not good, you know. That's not good either, right? You have to plan out a time and do it carefully, choose the right time and the place that fits. What questions or thoughts do you have about this? Because this could go a million different directions. But do you have any thoughts or questions or maybe some observations about this key idea of being careful about your timing? A word fitly spoken, the Bible says, is like apples of gold and pictures of silver. What are apples of gold and pictures of silver? I don't know, but it sounds great. Yeah, Kim? One method I think that's helped me with dealing with my dad or the other sex. if there's something I want to talk to him about, I will say, I don't need you to answer this right now, but I want you to think about this. Yeah, that's a really good, so when you go into a situation that you've been thinking about a lot, and you introduce it to a person who hasn't had any time to think about it, realize that you're doing that. A lot of us, I mean, I don't, sometimes I don't even realize I'm doing that. Like I've been chewing on this idea, and I throw an idea out there, And whoever I'm talking to, their first response is, no way, or that's a terrible idea, or whatever. And it takes a while, because I've been thinking about it. You're right. So giving them a heads up and saying, hey, I got something I want us to think about. Can we talk about this later? It might. It depends on the personality. Some people are going to be like, no, I'm not going to wait. I'm going to talk about it now. No delays. But that's really good advice. Yeah, absolutely. Anybody has any other advice, feel free to pass, you know, I'm new at this too. Yes, Brian. Yeah, that's a good tactic. There's all kinds of ways you can manage chaos, especially if there's a lot of interrupting going on or a lot of not listening going on. That's a great way. He's saying you could have an object and say, look, it's my turn to talk when I'm holding the pen or whatever it is. We pass it, and that's a way of managing the time, managing respect among the parties so that you both are heard. Absolutely, there's a lot of practical things you can do. The next one on this is talk in person whenever possible. Texting does not count as in person. In fact, I was reading a book recently, and I actually told this to another couple I was working with. I thought it was so fascinating. It was a book by a non-Christian, and he was talking about how People have replaced relationships with things that stand-ins that are not as good, like texting. And he said phone calls are close because you can hear a person's voice and you can hear a lot. But there's so much communication that happens face-to-face, so much. So much non-verbal, so much happens beyond just the words being spoken. And the point he makes is that the only reason you should really use texting is to get to a conversation. not as a stand-in for conversation. You should use texting as a way to arrange a conversation. Does that make sense? So you say, hey, can we talk on the phone, or can we meet tonight to talk over this? Not, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I've got a problem, and you're writing a book. Because I've seen those texts before, right? People come in my office, and we've had these conversations, and they say, this is what happened. And I look at the phone, and there is a, I have to scroll on the phone to read a book. that this person has written their spouse. And that's not helpful, okay? Because that is not typically going to work well. Now, ironically, the funny thing is that sometimes what actually does work well are letters. It's different. I don't know why it's different. But I think sometimes people process it differently, or they are able to write more eloquently or be more compassionate when they write letters than when they text. I don't know why that is. This is not in the Bible. This is just my observation. But I have noticed That letters actually will reach the heart much better than texting. Texting, just for whatever reason, does not work very well. So just if, yeah, Patty. Part of that just is a different part of your brain is employed. Yeah. Between any type of typing or electronic communication versus actually having a pen in your hand. It's different. Yeah, and kind of like visual communication, when you sit down and you talk to somebody face-to-face, like there's so many little things, like as you write with your handwriting, there are things, there are things, underlines and the way you write can communicate. And so don't, you know, if you have a family member who you are estranged from, one of the, and we've talked about this with many people before, one of my regular recommendations is write them a letter. Because They have the letter now, and they can choose to read it. They can choose to read it again, and again, and again. And they can't cut you off. They can't cut the letter. And they can throw it away. They can do whatever they want. But once you have done that, that is a great way for you to reach out to someone who maybe won't listen to you, is to write them a letter. But whenever possible, go face to face. As I said earlier, texting, for some reason, as you mentioned, there's some sort of scientific reason behind it as well. It just does not work well. The next one is engage rather than declare. Engage rather than declare. And what he means by that is that he says, quote, one of the fastest ways to make people defensive is to abruptly announce what they've done wrong. If you launch into a direct and detailed description of their faults, they are likely to close their ears and launch a counterattack. Therefore, it is wise to think carefully about how to open a conversation in a way that shows genuine concern for the person and engages him in listening to your words without being defensive. So engage rather than just declare. You have been insensitive to me by blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You are whatever. rather than making a statement engaged with them about this. The next point he makes, I'm going to end on this one, is that communicate so clearly you cannot be misunderstood. And the point, this is a business, kind of a business rule, he said that rather than, he said rather than thinking about saying, I want to be communicated enough to be understood or clearly enough so that I will be understood. That's how most people think. I want to clearly communicate enough so that people understand me. He says, I want you to communicate so clearly that you cannot be misunderstood, which is another level of clarity, which might mean you say, this is what I'm not saying. I'm not saying this. I'm not saying this. I am saying this. And when I say this, this is what I mean. I mean this, and I mean this, and I mean this. I am not saying this. You know what I mean? You have to be very clear, because when tensions are high, I mean, how many times have you misunderstood your spouse or your parents or people, your boss or people like that. When tensions are high, is it easier to misunderstand or harder to misunderstand? It's so much easier, right, to misunderstand somebody when tensions get high. All of a sudden you can just totally be talking past each other. So communicate so clearly that you cannot be misunderstood. I think that's a really good principle. He says here, it is not good enough to communicate so that you can be understood. You should communicate so clearly that you cannot be misunderstood. The principle is especially important for people who are in positions of leadership. Their words affect many people. When they communicate in a way that leaves the door open for varying interpretations, they are setting the stage for misunderstanding and conflict. Okay, so please do that. Any questions or thoughts about some of these principles or thoughts on how to communicate in speaking the truth in love? Very practical stuff here. Yeah, Patty. One question, as far as the time and place, what if you have someone that tends to avoid those kinds of conversations? How do you get them to engage without running away? That's a really good question. So if somebody is avoiding those kinds of conversations, how do you get them to engage? Yeah. I think it depends. I think a lot of it depends on your relationship with that person, whether you're like a superior to that person. Like I could say it's one of your students. Let's say you're a teacher. It's one of your students. Or it's somebody who works for you. Or it's somebody who is responsible to you in some way. That's different. You can hold their feet to the fire. You can hold them accountable. If they're a peer, it's very difficult because you can't pull any authority kind of power on them and say, well, I need you to be in my office at whatever time. I would just say persistence. I've had people do that with me, like people sometimes don't want to, you know, talk to me. I'm the pastor, you know, I don't want to talk to the pastor. That's scary, you know. I don't think I'm intimidating, but they might think, you know, whatever. And so, but persistence sometimes in saying, oh, I really am serious that I really would like to talk. about this, and you pick the time, you pick the place. Sometimes offering to buy coffee, it's like offering, you're saying, hey, coffee's on me, has broken down some barriers, but persistence is important. I mean, I know how it is with, it just depends on, and then if it's a superior, if it's someone who's like your boss, and they don't wanna deal with you, I don't know. That's a little bit more difficult. You might have to go through a different channel. But I think persistence is important. Because I found that to be true for me. If people aren't listening to me or aren't wanting to talk to me, I tend to just go back to them. I give some time, and I'm like, hey, did you miss this email? And often it's in writing. I do it in writing so I can keep track of what I'm doing. I don't know if that helps at all. I'm sorry. I wish I had better answers than that. Tony? Sometimes I've found that it obviously depends on the situation. But if you can try to open the door with something to the effect of, can I have your help with something, or can you make it seem like they're doing something for you, like you need them, so that it's not so much... That's my line I use when I'm on customer service on the phone. It's like, I need your help with something. You guys are failing me. But that's a really good... A lot of times the people, because I'm one of them, but the people who don't like confrontation, a lot of times that kind of takes the edge off of that. Yeah, that's a really good point. So get them on your side and see the problem. So again, I'll close with this, is that often what happens is we've got two people and a problem that separates them, right? And what happens is they say, hey, you're the reason for the problem. No, no, no, no, no. You're the reason for the problem. And we're mad at each other. And we go round and round and round. What never gets talked about? The problem, right? We say, you caused the problem. No, you caused the problem. And so if we say, hey, let's work on the problem. Let's work on the problem. Instead of blaming each other for the problem, let's talk about the problem. You can actually make some progress and deal with that. That's a very simplistic way of thinking about it, but you'd be amazed at how many people, their basic solution to the problem is you need to change. Okay, that's not a solution. That's not a solution to the problem. So the problem is part of you and part of them, and you've got to deal with it, deal with the problem itself. Okay, I've gone over, so I'm gonna close before we get invaded here. So thank you so much for your good attention. We'll pick up next week. Father, thank you for your love for us. Help us to have a good week. I pray, God, that we would have a good speech and our speech would be filled with love and that we care about the people around us. Help us, Lord, to have wisdom in these difficult situations that we don't always know what to do. I pray that you would open doors of opportunity. I pray we'd always pray and ask for your Spirit's guidance when we deal with people, knowing that you're working, and you're working on them, you're working on us. It's not just about making others change, it's about working towards Christ-likeness in all the things that we have to deal with. I pray your blessings on...