This morning I'd like to take another key,
our key is still here, and this morning
I'd like to think with you about keys
to effective conversation.
Perhaps that's something we don't think about too
much.
We get together and talk and say the
very first thing that comes off the top
of our heads.
Whereas really we should look before we look,
shouldn't we?
And the Bible has an awful lot to
say about this.
Conversation is really a science.
And it's a skill that we should devote
ourselves to, that we should consciously think about.
Let's read at the outset a single verse
of scripture.
It's Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 29.
It says, let no corrupt communication.
I don't know where I ever got this,
but somewhere I read that that word corrupt
could really mean worthless.
And I like that.
It doesn't necessarily mean off-color, although that
certainly could be included here.
But let's think of it this morning anyway.
Let no worthless communication proceed out of your
mouth.
But that which is good to the use
of edifying, and then if you have a
modern translation of the Bible, it adds those
words, as the need may be, which is
just what really should be in there, to
the use of edifying as the need may
be that it may minister grace unto the
hearers.
And really that verse is saying that you
and I should really give ourselves to the
building of communication skills, that we should discipline
ourselves in the matter of our conversation, not
just to talk, but to seek to be
helping others when we do talk.
I'm really preaching for myself this morning.
I really am.
Let me give you an illustration of the
way it usually goes.
We get together in a group.
Somebody sees a rabbit running through the grass.
That reminds another person of some welsh rabbit
they ate on the plane between Bangor, Maine
and Waco, Texas.
Bangor, Maine.
People think of lobsters when they think of
Bangor, Maine.
And so somebody starts to talk about lobsters.
Invariably the conversation does get back recurrently to
subjects of food.
And before you know, you've wandered all the
way from Dan to Beersheba, and really you
haven't got anywhere.
Isn't that right?
That's typical of conversation.
Now this says, let no words of communication
proceed out of your mouth, but rather that
which is good to the use of at
a time as the need may be that
it may minister grace to the hearers.
So that brings us to the first key
in this whole subject of effective conversation.
Take the initiative when you're speaking to people
in asking significant questions.
Take the initiative in asking meaningful, significant questions.
That is, seek to draw people out.
Now the Lord Jesus was a master at
this.
He was a master at everything good.
Do you think of any questions the Lord
Jesus asked?
He knew the answers to them all, didn't
he?
The Lord never asked a question because he
didn't know the answer.
He asked questions to draw people out.
Anybody, think of a single question he ever
asked.
You know, it's a request, but I was
thinking more of a question.
Ah, good.
Whom do men say that I am?
Very good.
He was going to draw them out.
He was going to go on with the
cross.
It was important that his disciples really know
who he was.
They were going to go through terrible times
of persecution.
Ten of them were going to die martyrs'
deaths, and one of them was going to
live a martyr's life.
And it was tremendously important that they know
who he is.
If he is Christ, the Son of the
Living God, then they're on the winning side.
They don't have to worry about the grave.
You see?
So he asked that significant question.
Whom do men say that I, the Son
of Man, am?
Another question.
Let's think of Christ.
Good question.
Whose son is he?
And one that pierces me every time he
ever asks me is this.
Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do
not the things that I say?
The questions of the Lord Jesus really were
communicating to the disciples, and they communicate to
us today as well.
This takes discipline.
It's not easy for me to do this,
and I have to be seeking to do
it all the time.
I say, well, that really is hard.
When you meet people, how do you ask
them significant questions?
I had the privilege as a younger man
of traveling some, not very much, but a
little, with dear Dr. Ironside.
He was always doing this.
I can remember driving across the Oakland Bay
Bridge with him, and he said to me,
what do you think that verse 1 Corinthians
6.4 means?
Set them to judge who are least esteemed
in the church.
It has to do with a passage about
going to law with one another.
And he said, what do you think that
means?
Isn't that strange?
Set them to judge who are least esteemed
in the church.
Well, imagine asking me.
I didn't even know there was a problem
there.
And so after I expressed my complete ignorance
on the subject, he said to me, so
gracious, he said, do you think it might
mean this?
He said, some versions of the Bible put
it as a question.
Do you set them to judge who are
least esteemed in the church?
And what it really means, he went on
to explain to me what it probably means
is that these Christians were going to law
against one another.
They were going to ungodly judges to settle
problems that should be settled in the church.
These ungodly judges were really of no standing
in the church.
It didn't mean that the church didn't respect
them, but they didn't have a standing among
the children of God.
And he's saying, you're going to people who
are least esteemed in the church, and you're
taking your troubles to them.
Is that what you do?
Do you set them to judge who are
least esteemed in the church?
I don't want to labor the point, but
I just merely point that out.
Here we are, driving across the Bay Bridge.
He asks me a question to draw me
out.
I don't know the answer.
He suggests the answer, and I still remember
it today.
You see, what I'm trying to say is
it was a profitable conversation.
We could have talked about Alcatraz.
We could have talked about Treasure Island.
We were passing the bridge there because they
were all in perfect view, but he didn't
do that.
He was always feeding your soul when he
was talking to you.
Wonderful, isn't it?
Really wonderful.
But that still leaves me up in the
air.
What question would I ever ask anybody?
Well, the first time you meet a person,
you can say, I don't think I ever
heard about your conversion.
Would you tell me how you were saved?
I said, there isn't.
If there haven't been, it's still better.
Another question you can ask is a conversation
like, have you read any good books lately?
You know, I received a great blessing in
life through having books recommended to me.
This morning after breakfast, two books were recommended
to me.
I wrote them down in my notebook.
I intend to read them.
I find if people have received a blessing
from a book and they pass it on,
I'm going to receive a blessing from that
book, too.
Have you read any good books lately?
It opens up a wonderful field of discussion
on good Christian books.
I was thinking about our meeting last night.
Have you had any thrilling answers to prayer
lately?
That should keep you going for a couple
of hours, shouldn't it?
So, that's the first key, and I think
it's a good key.
Try to take the initiative in asking meaningful,
significant questions, seeking to draw out the other
person.
Key number two, be a good listener, showing
a sincere interest in what the other person
is saying.
I said, oh, Jesus was a good listener.
That's marvelous, isn't it, when you think of
God becoming man down here on this earth
and wandering among such failing creatures, and yet
he was so human, and I say it
respectfully, rubbing shoulders with people like us, and
yet so humble and listening to what people
had to say.
One of the verses that Brother McKenzie has
been going over with us comes to mind
Philippians 2.
Philippians 2, verse 3 says, In lowliness of
mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
I had a friend up in Chicago, and
when you meet this fellow, he acts as
he talks to you, he acts as if
that's the greatest thing that's happened to him
all day.
He's so interested in everything that concerns him.
Everybody loves him.
He's so fair, he really means this.
He listens with such rapt attention and enters
into it as if this were so important
in his life.
And people really love that dear brother.
He's a good listener.
Darrell Carnegie was introduced to somebody, and Darrell
asked a couple of significant questions of the
person.
The person took off and started to talk.
Later on that person said to a friend,
You know, that Darrell Carnegie is a wonderful
conversationalist.
He hasn't said anything but the initial question
yet.
A good listener is not only popular everywhere,
but after a while he knows something.
And you know, I try to remind myself
of this.
There isn't a Christian in the world that
I can't learn something from.
Do you believe that?
There isn't a Christian in the world that
I can't learn something.
That you can learn something from charismatic Christians.
Yes, I sure can.
I can learn more about praise, and I
can learn more about servancy and prayer, and
many other things.
There isn't a belief.
That's what we believe.
We believe that we're all members of the
body.
We believe that every member of the body
is important.
Every member of the body is significant.
I don't care what Christian I meet anywhere.
I can learn.
I think of people that have been such
a tremendous blessing in my life, and they
don't even know it today.
A good listener is not only popular everywhere,
but after a while he knows something.
A good listener looks at the person he's
talking to instead of letting his gaze wander
all around the room.
He tries to refrain from yawning or sighing.
And he doesn't interrupt with every random thought
that comes to his mind.
This is really one of the hindrances in
effective conversation.
You're talking along.
What you're saying is good, and some random
thought comes to my mind like a twaddle
to the gable of a barn, and I
just can't hold it in, and I interrupt
the conversation that I would come, and the
continuity of the conversation is blown.
And a good listener responds with smiles and
with notes of agreement, showing that he's really
entering into the conversation.
Then the next key is, the third key
is this.
You've asked a question.
You've listened attentively to the answer.
I think the next step is to comment
on it.
Now, that comment can be an elaboration of
what has been said.
Those here who minister the Word of God
publicly know what a joy it is when
somebody comes up at the end of the
meeting and shares some thought that really caps
the climax, and you say, I wish I
had said that.
They've been right with you all along, and
their minds have been working, and they have
something good to add.
Now, you can do that in conversation too.
You can comment.
Maybe that brother lacks balance.
I praise God today for the ministry of
a man named Charles Van Ryn who was
with us at Emmaus Bible School, and Charles
probably grew old trying to teach me balance.
Because it's so easy to get on a
subject, to go off on a tangent, to
become extreme on it, to become an extremist,
and he was forever trying to balance things
out with us.
It's a great ministry.
Maybe your comment will do that.
It can reinforce what's been said.
It can be balancing what's been said, or
it can even correct something that has been
said.
The fourth key is always seek to edify.
Always seek to edify.
I want to do this.
I want to discipline myself in working with
people, in being with people, to be contributing
to their spiritual welfare.
That's what this verse says.
This is good for the use of edifying,
that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
Always seek to edify.
Someone has said, be a thermostat instead of
a thermometer.
The thermometer reflects the temperature in the room,
but the thermostat controls the temperature in the
room, doesn't it?
We should be a thermostat rather than a
thermometer.
When I'm with a crowd, maybe the conversation
is going off and into the wild blue
wonder.
It's getting nowhere.
It's a good chance to step in and
try to bring the conversation back onto a
constructive level.
And in that connection, you say, well, how
can I...
Find out the person's interest that you're talking
to and try to make spiritual applications.
Try to make spiritual applications.
Maybe you're talking about something that's very mundane,
but I believe there are spiritual applications in
everything of life about us.
We finished our breakfast this morning and the
young people are there and they're wiping off
the table and they're sweeping up the floor
almost before we get out of the dining
room.
Surely no spiritual application.
Sure there is.
I look at those young people and I
think, can you sweep floors to the glory
of God?
And of course the answer is yes, you
can.
Yes, you can.
Whatever you do.
Whether you eat or drink or whatever you
do, do all for the glory of God.
Hard to think, isn't it, that God takes
note of those things and it's pleasing to
him when it's done in his name and
for his glory.
One of the greatest men I ever knew
for making spiritual applications was dear Fred Elliott
from Portland, Arizona.
And when you were with him, whatever was
happening was always something spiritual about it.
I was standing outside the chapel in LaGrange
one day.
It was right near the railroad tracks and
he and I were talking and as we
were talking there, there was a tremendous roar
and it was the California Zephyr, you know,
coming by.
And it went, vroom, you know, two big
diesel engines or whatever they were.
There's one roaring by.
He said, tapped me in the shoulder and
he said, power, brother, but nothing like the
power that raised him from the dead.
I thought it was the California Zephyr.
He could see a spiritual truth connected with
that train zooming back.
I've never forgotten it.
That was years ago.
He told me it happened now.
I've never forgotten it.
The power that raised the Lord Jesus from
the dead was the greatest display of power
the universe has ever known.
Isn't it nice to see that when a
train goes by?
I think so.
And to share it with somebody else, the
Burlington Zephyr.
Okay, next key.
Praise whenever you can.
Praise whenever you can do so sincerely.
There's a difference between praise and flattery.
We know that flattery isn't right.
Flattery is saying something that you know isn't
true.
If you say to Eddie Schwartz, you're a
good sayer, that's praise.
If you say it to me, it's flattery.
And there is a difference.
We're so afraid that we forget.
And you know, it's a very nice thing
in going through life, every once in a
while, to sit down and write a letter
to somebody and just express a little gratitude,
a little appreciation.
You'd be surprised what a letter like that
does along the way to people.
People are dying for a little bit of
gratitude like that today.
And letters or phone calls or words like
that can lift a fallen spirit and cheer
a person along the way.
Don't be stingy.
Paul did that.
I think in all of his letters, but
Galatians, he had some word of praise, didn't
he?
At least at the outset.
He didn't have them Galatians because they were
swallowing another gospel, but wherever he could find
something to praise, he would do so at
the very outset of his letters.
And we should imitate him in this and
in our conversations.
Next key, be positive, not negative.
Thankful, not complaining.
Be positive, not negative.
Thankful, not complaining.
It's a wonderful gift to be positive, not
negative.
I'm telling some of the friends that in
our discipleship training program, twice a year, those
of us on the staff sit down and
we take the file about one of the
fellows that's working with us.
And we go over that file and we
sit down, we spend an hour doing this
actually, at least an hour, and we appraise
that fellow spiritually, his spiritual life, his academic
life, his personal life, and his practical Christian
service.
And we write down in a simple paper
everything positive that we can say about him
and everything that needs attention.
And then we call him in on Monday
afternoon after lunch and he sits there at
the mouth of the lion, as it were,
and he hears it all.
However, when we sit there, we might say,
well, this fellow has this failing.
But when it's presented to him, when it's
presented to him, it comes out as a
positive thing.
You might think about the whole subject of
and seek to improve in that area.
In other words, we don't come down with
a sledgehammer on him.
We come in with velvet gloves and present
it in a positive way and tell him
areas of his life that he can give
greater attention to.
You know, most of us grow up and
we don't have people that love us enough
to do that with us.
There really is a kindness.
The best friends I've ever had are the
people who've been frank with me, told me
things in my life that they didn't think
were fitting for a follower of the Lord
Jesus.
I was really touched this year and one
of the fellows said, we always, incidentally, at
the end of this session, we ask them,
you know, now, do you have anything to
ask?
Has this been fair?
One of them said, I could have told
you all that before I came in, he
said.
Very good.
But one fellow stood at the door this
year and he said, as he was leaving,
he said, I just want to thank you
men, he said, for the way you pour
your lives into mine.
And they appreciated that people loved them enough
to appraise them and to help them along
the way in a positive way.
They know they're not trying to tear them
down.
They're trying to build them up.
Be positive, not negative.
Next, speak the truth in love.
Speak the truth in love.
Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 15.
But speaking the truth in love may grow
up into him in all things, which is
the head, even Christ.
You know, there's a right and wrong way
of doing everything.
I think that's one of the things we
learn as we mature in the Christian life.
A right and wrong way of doing it.
It's possible to speak the truth, even, and
not speak it in love.
But I tell you, when it's closed in
love, it really makes all the difference.
And closely connected with that, another key is
that Colossians 4, 6.
Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned
with love.
Colossians 4, 6.
Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned
with love, that ye may know how ye
ought to answer every moon.
In other words, our speech should be transparently
honest, our conversation with people, and yet, once
again, it should be loving.
I see this so beautifully in the life
of the Lord Jesus.
Let your speech be always with grace.
He said to the woman, Give me to
drink.
Oh, what a gracious thing for a Jew
to say to a Samaritan woman.
You know, there are no diplomatic relations between
those people.
That's an understatement.
There is genuine hostility between them.
And the Savior said, Give me to drink.
Let your speech be always with grace.
But you drop down a few verses, and
he says, Go call thy husband.
Seasoned with salt.
Right?
Now, that was the surging scalp of reaching
in, conviction of sin.
Unkind?
No, it wasn't unkind.
Best thing that ever happened to her.
Leather to the feet of the Savior.
Same thing with a woman taken in the
act of adultery.
He said, Neither do I condemn thee.
Always with grace.
Go and sin no more.
Seasoned with salt.
And you can go through the conversation of
the Lord Jesus, and you can see these
things so clearly set forth.
And then a final key.
Try to involve strangers or quiet persons in
the conversation.
You know, it's possible to get together with
a group and for just two or three
to really carry the ball and others to
sit there and say not a word.
It's really a nice thing to be able
to involve others in the conversation, especially children.
Don't you think when the Lord Jesus was
in a home that he would always try
to draw the children out?
I think so.
I think he had a wonderful way.
And incidentally, you can learn an awful lot
by talking to children.
I tell you, those little minds are really
working.
And out of the mouths of those who
suffer has thou ordained strength because of thy
enemies.
Well, I can look back and think of
conversations, plethora of conversations that I've had with
little ones and the gems of wisdom that
they've come across with.
And so these are some keys.
The basic thought I want to leave with
you this morning is that we really shouldn't
allow our conversations to meander, to wander, that
we should discipline ourselves in our conversations to
always seek to be accomplishing something for the
Lord, to be building people up in their
most holy faith, to be helping them along
the way, to seek to edify them as
the need may be.
It really should be appropriate just the right
words spoken by the Holy Spirit of God,
really how wonderful it is.
Just to be able to be there in
a home of sorrow and to quote the
right verse of Scripture.
Nothing else has been able to help the
people.
And you come along and you quote Psalm
30, verse 5, weeping may endure for a
night, but joy cometh in the morning and
the cloud is lifted.
Wonderful thing.
As the need may be that our speech
might be appropriate.
So, may each of us make this our
prayer this morning.
Let the words of my mouth, the meditations
of my heart, be acceptable in my sight,
O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.