Harnessing the Power of Words | Part 4 | Can We Talk? | Chris Voigt

Can We Talk?
Harnessing the Power of Words
August 28, 2022

Imagine with me for a moment...
 
You’re short on time. You’re leaving, parting ways, it’s hasta la vista, baby.
 
Could be that you’re just headed to bed or taking off on a weekend road trip;
 
maybe you’re moving to another part of the country or a different one altogether;
 
or perhaps you know that you’re coming to the end of your life (as all of us will, sooner or later).
 
Every night, before I go to sleep, I say, “I love you,” to DeeDee. I know it’s kind of a gruesome thought; but, if she were to die in her sleep, she would die knowing I loved her; and if I died in my sleep, those would be the last words seared into her memory…haunting her for the rest of her days.
 
In every “leaving” scenario, there are words that should be said; it might be instructions to give, cautions to share, values to communicate, or a relationship to mend. What things would be most important for you to say to the people in your life if you were leaving them behind, whether for an evening, a week, a year, or indefinitely? What would you want them to know?
 
On the eve of Jesus’ execution, He spent time praying to His Father, talking about the things that mattered most to Him. He had spent three years speaking truth, hope and life into His closest friends. So, in His final hours, what was His greatest concern leading up to His execution? What did He most want to say?
 
In John 17, Jesus, praying over His disciples, says, “Father... I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one...I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me...”
Three times Jesus prays for unity among His disciples; and not just the small group who are gathered around Him in that moment, but He asks for unity among “those who will believe in me through their message.” That includes you and me!
 
Unity was what mattered most to Jesus. Unity was what would spread His message to the world. If unity was such a big deal to Jesus, don’t you think we should do whatever is necessary to cultivate and protect it? In order to do that, we must love each other the way Jesus loves us, in the ways we treat one another and how we speak to one another. And it means that when unity is threatened…we must courageously wade into hard conversations to restore peace.
 
I’m Chris Voigt, Lead Pastor at Dayspring Fellowship in Keizer, OR. We are in week 4 of our series, Harnessing the Power of Words. We’ve covered a lot of ground already; but as we come to this week, we’re going to unpack what it looks like to have hard conversation with a higher purpose…or, as I like to call them, redemptive conversations. We’ll look at how to navigate those conversations in a healthy way and why doing so is so important.
 
Our words matter. Let’s learn to use them in ways that reveal the heart of Jesus to our world!