The Power of Words

Chapters

• 0:00 Warm Welcome & Family Stories
• 1:39 Prayer and Context for Study
• 2:25 Childhood Conduct and The Power of Words
• 5:26 Statistics, Tongues, and Scriptural Weight
• 8:36 Judgment and Every Careless Word
• 11:28 Apples of Gold: Intentional Speech
• 13:19 Soft Answers vs. Harsh Words
• 16:04 Truth in Love and Real Growth
• 18:07 Vampire Christians and Lasting Wounds
• 21:28 A One-Year Tongue Dedication Challenge
• 24:06 Closing Prayer and Dismissal

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Earlier we were at a pre-production meeting and Mac asked me, you know, the question he had asked y'all a moment ago about favorite toy growing up. And I forget how he worded it, but something like, uh, since you're the ancient of days and all, did they like have toys back then when you were little? So yeah, I told him when the wheel came out, it's really cool. And uh that's great. You know, just a little bit uh more. My uh bride couldn't be here today, 35 years. We got four adult kids. My uh oldest, she and her husband, uh they're expecting after like years of the doctor saying they're never gonna get pregnant. So that was excellent. That's great. Um, my uh oldest boy, he and his wife live in Washington, D.C. He told he can't tell me what he does. He says, Dad, you don't want to know. I'm guessing he's probably right. Uh my youngest son, he's a captain in the Air Force. He pilots an F-16, he's our top gun guy. He lives in uh right now South Korea. And then my baby uh married her this summer. And I thought everything was fine. You know, I've been through this before, but just before getting ready, you know, to walk down the aisle, she's she looks up at me and she says, Dad, I love you. Forget it, right? So I ball all the way down the aisle, then I turn around and do the wedding, and I'm crying the entire wedding. So, uh, and I'm about I'm thinking I'm done. I think I'm totally out, and it's time for the daddy daughter dance, and butterfly kisses comes on, right? So it's like, you know what, you know what? It was glorious. It was a he's a good guy, I think. I think we'll see. Um, but uh today, this morning, we're gonna um do more of a Bible study than a sermon, if that's okay. Um, but let me take a second to pray for us before we open God's word, because uh Lord, we we know the things of your word are spiritually discerned. And really sharp people in here this morning, but God, we know without your spirit opening our eyes and opening our heart, um it's just words. Would you help us to see what you intend? Would we be the people you want us to be? And so, Lord, this morning, what we don't know, would you would you teach us? What we don't have, would you give us and what we're not will you make us for your glory in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, like Max said, I was in Chicago, grew up in Chicago. Well, by by the way, let me just mention this. Uh, about 30 years ago now, a virus uh got in a battle with my cerebellum, back part of my brain. So I don't have much balance. So if you see me doing this, not a big deal. My family, my church, everyone's used to it. Uh, if I fall along, you just kind of pick me up, we'll keep going, we'll be, we'll be, we'll be all right. Um, but uh so I'm in Chicago, grew up in Chicago, and uh back then, it's like 60s, they had report cards. We did have report cards, but this was before the digital world, right? So nothing is sent home to your parents electronically. The report cards were literal cards, you know, half of a card stock, eight and a half by eleven, all the subjects written down on one column, and then next to it, the teacher would give a numerical grade. Five was about as good as you could get, one was about as bad as you could get. And I was a pretty good kid, I think, pretty good student, mostly all fours and fives, but there was one subject that I just always got a one on. And you know, as much it was terrible for me, but it was really bad for my mom because the school kept calling my mom up to bring her in for these teacher-parent conferences on this one that I was getting. It wasn't in math or phonics or history and that stuff, it was in something they called conduct. I did not know you could be graded on conduct. And it wasn't that I was a bad kid, I wasn't a bully, I didn't cuss out the teachers or anything like that, but I had an incredible addiction for talking. I could not stop talking. I just talked all the time. Whenever she asked a question, my hand was up. Didn't matter if I knew the answer or not, my hand was up. And if she didn't ask a question, my hand was up. And if she didn't call on me, I assumed it was, you know, oversight on her part, and so I shared my wisdom anyways, or my humor, my sarcasm, just continuously. I can't tell you how many times I stayed after school washing the jogboards because I was talking too much. Or how many times literally sat in the corner of our classroom, my back to the class as punishment for talking too much. Or how many times I wrote, I will not talk in class. Like a hundred million times, I'm sure. Nothing worked, nothing worked. I just talked all the time. Now, at this point in history, I'm in Iwana, and our leaders thought that we should wear our uniforms to school. They thought they thought it'd be good for our testimony. They did not have a clue who I was, right? So I wore my Iwana uniform that day, and it was a particularly loquacious day for me, and I was in my zone. I mean, the words were coming, and they were incredibly humorous and incredibly wise, and inform it was just perfect. And poor Mrs. Han had already told me probably a dozen times to please be quiet. And I can see this today. I'm in my classroom. Mrs. Hahn is up there, and she's got her wool skirt on and her uh, you know, buffant hair thing going on, and she's teaching something or other, and and she says something. I forget what she said, but it just begged for commentary. You know, it's like, how could you not respond? It was her fault, not my fault. She said that she backed herself in your corner, and so I blurted out my incredible without thinking something I thought was funny, and she wheeled around on her heels, and she had this big piece of chalk, and she smashed this thing in the ground, a million pieces. And then she she did this. How dare you wear your God shirt to my class? And she said, And you don't care about God. You don't care about your friends, you don't have any friends, you don't care about anything but your big, stupid mouth that you think is so funny, and it's and she just she was just getting warmed up, man. She was going and she spits floining and fangs and her veins and popping out, and her hair and the aqua net came off her hair, and she's I thought I killed poor Mrs. Han. When she got done, finally, she had to breathe somewhere. She finally stopped, and I just sat there, little you know, eight-year-old kid, tears pouring down my face, as humiliated and as embarrassed as you could possibly imagine. Probably deserved it all. I learned two things that day, though. I learned number one, Mrs. Han does not have a sense of humor, right? Do not push Mrs. Han. Number two, I learned maybe my words aren't as funny as I thought they were. Maybe my words are not as neutral as I thought they were. Maybe they cause some trouble. You know, as a kid, nothing got me into more trouble than my mouth. As an adult, nothing gets me in more trouble than my mouth. I forget. I regret very few things that I haven't said. A couple, but very few, but I've I've regretted a lot of stuff that I have said. You know, they say that in a year's time, your heart's gonna beat about 35 million times. In a year's time, you're gonna take 8.7 million breaths. In a year's time, you're gonna have about 7 million blinks of your eyes. In a year's time, you will use 3.5 million words in one year. That's a lot of words. That's six to ten thousand a day, right? Based on whether or not you're an introvert, extrovert. Some of y'all have probably already blown your quota for the day. That's a lot. That's 300 million words in a lifetime. You know that the tongue of a blue whale weighs 5,600 pounds. That's the size of a large elephant. Yeah, your tongue of mine, 2.4 ounces. Yet our tongue's a whole lot more deadly than the tongue of a blue whale. A lot more powerful. You say, how powerful? Great question. I don't have it on screen, but but Proverbs 6. This is, you know, Proverbs, great book. Solomon, wisest man who ever lived. He's writing to his son, the crown prince, probably Rheaboam. He's gonna take over the throne when his dad, and so his dad's trying to prep him. But in Proverbs 6, he says this. He says, There are six things that the Lord hates, yea, seven that are an abomination to him. And you'll love the King James English. Abomination to him. That means seven things that make God sick. Three of the seven deal with the tongue. So if you can get a handle on your tongue, you've curbed like 50% of the stuff God could have a problem with you about. Keep in mind, with with the word, God speaks everything into existence, right? Everything from quirks to black holes with a word. With just a few words. Pope Urban II spoke the crusades into existence, right? We're still living with the ramifications of that one. With just words, the the genocides of Nazi Germany and Rwanda, they they began and were maintained. James tells us, Jesus, have brother, that nothing does the bidding of hell on this earth more than your tongue. And remember you had little kids, all right, my kids are all gone now. But I remember when, especially that first one, when when they're starting to talk, or you want them to talk, right? You want them to talk like nine months before they start talking. But you're like, come on, kid, you can say it, you know, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. You can say, come on, come on, say it with me, say it with me. And then one day, the kid utters something totally unintelligible, and you're like, Yes, yes, he said dada, I know it, I know it, yeah. You think you want the Olympics, I got it, dadda, first word. And it's not very long till the kids start saying some very intelligible words, though. Words that have a 180-degree difference in that parent's heart, right? No. Me, my, mine. And then it goes downhill from there. You know, with the words they can horrify or glorify God. With our words, we can build up or we can blow up. With our words, we can we can bring pleasure or pain. We can we can incite or we can soothe. Words are powerful, powerful things. You say, well, how powerful are they? Well, this is what Proverbs says. Proverbs 18, 21. It says, Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Now just kind of stare at that for a minute. Death is about as bad as it gets. You know, as a pastor, you see a lot of death and entering into death and a lot of tears, a lot of anguish, sometimes wailing and destroyed relationships. Death is about as bad as it gets. Life, on the other hand, Jesus came that we'd have life in abundantly, right? That's about as good as it gets. If you have a tongue, regardless of your socioeconomics, regardless of your age, regardless of your education, if you've got a tongue, you've got the most powerful thing in the universe at your access, at your, at your disposal. And I can I know some folk might say, you know what, listen, I just gotta, I see where this talk is going, and you just gotta know I gotta be who I am, and I'm just a straight shooter, right? That's just who I am. I'm just a straight shooter, and I gotta be who I am. And I would say, hang on, hang, I'm not so sure you gotta be who you are. You know who you are according to Scripture. You are wicked and evil and depraved and self-righteous and judgmental, and bitter, bitter, you don't have to be who you are. Matter of fact, it's part of the deal with the cross that we don't have to be who we are. He's gonna change us, he's gonna make us. You might say, well, well, you know, this is kind of wild, Mr. D.S. You get to one shot at our at our pulpit, Mac is so kind to let you in, and you're gonna talk about the tongue. Is that the best you got? Well, hang on. I think it's it's kind of important. Matthew 12. This is what Jesus said. He said, I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every careless word they speak. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. Now it says, right, that when we've all got an appointment with the judgment, no one's getting out of it. We will all be there. We're one day closer to it than we were yesterday. And when we get there, there's gonna be a separate judgment, or at least part of the judgment, where the Lord is gonna say, Hey, let's talk about your words for a minute. I gave you 300 million of them. What'd you do with it? Hey, I created everything with some words. Let's let's see what you did with yours. And at that point, we're gonna give an account of every careless word. Well, my goodness, what is a careless word? We probably should know what a careless word is. Well, careless, I think its opposite, is a careful word. Full of care for God's word, full of care for God's values, full of care for God's kingdom, full of care for this person that just rubbed me the wrong way, full of care for him. Careful words. And then look at this, it's the second verse on this. Because if Jesus hadn't said this, I think we would say that this was probably heresy. He says, For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. At the judgment, by our words, we might say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. I thought I was justified by the blood of Jesus. This, what do you mean by my words? This what is, I don't want to create a big old mess that Max's gonna have to clean up when I'm gone here. But we got to keep in mind, right, that you can't just take a verse and build your whole theology on one verse. The rule of hermeneutics is that there is, you cannot, nothing can be considered a biblical doctrine unless it takes into account all of what Scripture has to say about it. And if you were to do uh test a study on justified, you know what you'd find? You'd find that we are justified by the blood of Christ. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourself, right? Uh we're we're not saved because we do. We're not redeemed by perishable things, like things that we can do, but but by the blood of Christ. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from your dead, says nothing about words, you will be saved. So, what's this mean? Don't throw this out because Jesus is an economizer of words. We don't want to defang this. I think what he's saying here is the same thing he says in Matthew 6 and Matthew 18, where he where he says that if you forgive your brother from in your heart, then the father will forgive you. And what he's saying is this is forgiven people are forgiving people. If you come to a place where you recognize that how depraved you are and you need his grace and you need his forgiveness, and you you need him, you're gonna be forgiving yourself. And what he's saying here is if you truly have an encounter with the Holy Spirit, with Jesus, and he has come in and he's dwelt within you, you know what? Your speech will begin to be transformed. Just to say that if your speech is reflecting hell more than heaven, not saying you're not saved, but you probably need to look in the mirror and pull an Apostle Paul and examine yourself whether or not you're in the faith, because Jesus is saying a key barometer of our spiritual life, of our spiritual health, of our spiritual maturity, certainly, is our our tongue, is our words. And so checking this out a little bit more, let's look at what a care, careful word looks like because we're gonna want to, we know we're gonna be judged on the careless ones. Proverbs 25, 11. It says, a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in the setting of silver. Now, just so we know, Proverbs, right, are not meant to be read quickly. You gotta like stop and stare at it for a while because the meaning is there, but it's not real obvious. It's not right on top. So if those who skim by will miss it completely, you gotta stare at it down. You gotta camp on it, you gotta look underneath the words and look around the corner of the words a little bit. That's called meditation, right? Proverbs 25, 11, a word fitly spoken like apples of gold and settings of silver. If you have apples, not apple, apples of gold, what have you got? Well, you know, gold is about four grand an ounce today. A apple, according to AI anyway, a golden apple, according to the size of your apple, it's about eight pounds. It's about half a million dollars an apple. And if you've got apples, you've got a bushel basket of these deals. What have you got? You've got a priceless treasure, don't you? You've got something that can change the trajectory of your life, something that can enhance your life in incredible ways. Words do that, according to Scripture. Words do that. If you're walking down the street and you see apples of gold and settings of silver on the side of the road, my guess is you're not gonna say, well, isn't this amazing how these apples of gold and settings of silver just evolved out of the dust here last few years? Probably you're not gonna be saying that. Probably you're gonna be thinking, um, among other things, you know what, this is the work of an artesian. Somebody had to had to think about this. These things did not randomly pop up. These are intentional. I think one of the things he might be saying here is intentional words. And I I, you know, I wish I could tell y'all, Mrs. Han would agree to this, that if I just let my my mouth speak raw and unfiltered, I wish I could tell y'all that just nothing's gonna come out except gold, except that which is biblical, that which is selfless, of that which is gonna build others up, that the only thing that's gonna come out of my mouth is that which is helpful. But unfortunately, that's just not the case. Uh scripture lets us know strange biology. Our tongues are connected to our hearts, Jesus says. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And gold words, careful words, are words that I stop before I just blurt, before I just be in who I am. I stop and I think through, oh God, what is it that you need me to say here? What is it that will reflect your word, not how I'm feeling right now? What is it that's best for this other person? What do you want me to say? These apples of gold words. Let's just dig this a little bit further. Proverbs 15, 1. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. You see that this harsh words and these soft words, they kind of do the same thing, don't they? I'm juxtaposed. The soft answer quelts wrath, but a harsh word kind of like pours gasoline on the fire, right? Now I don't recommend that you all do this, but if you were to go home, don't do this. But if you go home, you take a piece of 23 grit sandpaper, right? And you put it on your hand. That ruffy side on your hand, right? And then you push down and you start rubbing really hard and you keep going, and even though it hurts, just keep rubbing and rubbing and rubbing. What are you gonna have? Well, when you get done, you're gonna have a bloody mess, won't you? And even when you pull the paper off and you quit rubbing, is the pain gonna go away? No, it's gonna keep hurting. And it may hurt for a long time. Matter of fact, you may have to go see somebody to help it heal. And if it does heal, you know what? If it doesn't get infected and kill you, if it does heal, it's gonna leave a terrible scar. Words are like that. We say them, and we think the way we think it's gonna work is the louder we get, and the louder we get, and the louder we get, and the harsher we get, and the harsher we get. If you get pushed, right, that's what you gotta do to win. That's what we think. But what happens is our words get onto somebody's soul and somebody's heart's heart, like that sandpaper harsh words, and they do some substantial damage. And even when we shut our mouth finally, they might be bleeding inside. And it's gonna take a long time to heal. And when it does heal, if it does, it might be a scar, and there's gonna be some damage done. And let's face it, all you and I, we all use harsh words, harsh words sometimes. But some of us, it may be more of a default system than others, and so you you we want to stop and say, harsh words, what what do we do? And you might think, okay, I know what you're saying. You're saying we're supposed to all use nice, kind words like everyone's a champion, everyone gets a trophy, everyone's a winner, those kind of words, right? Wimpy words. No, no, no, no. Proverbs 25, 15. With patience, a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone. Now, in the Proverbs, you go usually got two lines, and the second line always points back to the first line. And so you look at this and you go, How's it pointing back? I think this is the picture. You got a king, back, ancient kings, right? The ones who didn't abide by the law, they made the law, and the law changed daily for who they are and how they they fell. But the king's got this great plan, and so he brings in his wise guys, and you're one of them, and he says, Hey guys, this is what we're gonna do. All right, I got this great idea, this is what we're gonna do, and he shares it with you, and you're listening to this and you're thinking, This is the most stupid idea. We're all gonna get killed if we do that. I can't, this is a dumb idea. But what do you say? Do you tell the king, King, are you waiting? Were you smoking when you came up with that one? King, my five-year-old could come up with a better plan than that. Are you serious? What a stupid idea! How's that gonna go for you, right? What do you do? What are you saying? It's a soft word. Can take something inflexible, a bone, a ruler's heart. He's got his mind made up, he's going this way. And if you say it right, you can steer it. This is what the business gurus would call leading from the second chair. You can steer it to a more profitable, better, safer, better way. Um what well, I mean, let's check out this. Proverbs 4.15. And this is a verse you know. Uh speaking the truth in love, we're to grow up in every way unto him who is the head and to Christ. Speaking the truth in love. It doesn't say we're supposed to speak the truth, does it? We speak the truth in love. How you say is as important, according to scripture here, as what you say. How you say is as important as what you say. And it kind of goes like this sometimes. You know what? Someone's got to be the adult in the room, and someone has to tell it the way it is, and sometimes the truth hurts, and so it's just gonna put it out there, and they need to put on their big boy pants or big girl pants and deal with it. I'm just gonna give them a piece of my mind. I'm gonna have that straight shooter, I'm just gonna share, I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind. And we would say, absolutely, by all means, give them a piece of your mind if you have the mind of Christ. A mind that's saturated in this book, a mind that is more about his kingdom than your own, a more a mind that wants to defend Christ more than wants to defend yourself, a mind that cares about this person who's just offended you as much as Jesus does, if that's the kind of mind you've got, then please share your mind because they're gonna be better off, God's gonna be pleased, people are gonna be edified, you're gonna be better off as well. But if your mind is nothing more than an odorous, cantankerous pile of self-righteousness and judgmentalism and depravity, then please keep that toxicity inside because speaking the truth without speaking the truth in love is not gonna please God, it's not gonna encourage other people, and it's not gonna help yourself in any way, shape, or form. Checking out the Ephesians verse for a second. This is cool. Why do you why do we do this? I saw this, I think, within the year that I thought I've knew those verse for a long time. But when we speak the truth in love, we grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ. We grow up. You see, you see what he's saying? When I know what I want to say, they cut me off, they've done something, they it's always their fault. They, they, they, Mrs. Han pushes herself into a corner, whatever else. I know what I want to say, and I'll but I I hold it in and I say, Lord, you know what I want to say, but help my words to be careful words, soft words. Now, what should I say that reflects you, that reflects your kingdom, that's better for this other person, that's good, that's that's working for redemption here. And I say those things. You you you you you see what just happened in the midst of the heat, I die to myself. I I shut down myself, I let the Holy Spirit have his way with me. And guess what? I grow. Next time I'm in that in that situation, it's gonna be a little bit easier to do that, and I'm gonna be recognizing as I go through life to be constantly plugged into what He has He has for me. So it helps it helps us, but it also helps other folk. It says we are to grow, that's that's the whole body. Um, Proverbs 15:1. It says a soft answer, there's our soft answer again, it turns away wrath, but a harsh answer stirs up anger. That turn, the word turn, that's the the Hebrew word shoev. It means um repent. This is the word that the prophets used all the time. Repent, repent, repent, repent, repent. In other words, you go in one direction, you're going there, and then you're going to change and you go 180, and now you're walking towards him. If you want someone to be redeemed, someone's going this way and they're not going well, and you want them to change and come to Christ, the way to get there is a soft word. If you want, not a harsh word. Now, if you want to win an argument, right? If you want to remind this other person what a loser they are and how terrible they are and how much they hurt you and what a what a joke they are, and how many times do I got to tell you. If you wanna if you want to let this person know how awful they are, then yeah, use a harsh word. Um but if you want them to repent, if you want them to turn, soft words, the only word that's gonna get there. You know, I dated a gale in college, uh, I'm gonna call her Becky, uh, because that was her name. And so Becky, uh she was a she was a neat gal. I mean, Becky was a godly girl. I mean, come on, I wouldn't date anyone otherwise, right? She's a sharp, wonderful girl. But she said when she was in high school, nah, not so much. She was living a very duplicitous life in high school. She was really going into everything that you can imagine one could go into in high school that's not good. Uh, but she would still go to youth group uh in church because her parents kind of were watching her and wanted her to go. Uh but so she's at youth group one night, and the youth pastor, hats off to him, he he knew the score, he knew what she was doing. And so she said she was in the hallway, and they kind of passed, and he just stopped her and he said, Becky, can I can I can I ask you a question? Becky, what are you doing? I mean, you've got so much potential for Christ to live for him. But you're you're you're training it for chasing the world. What are you doing? And then he went on. Probably forgot about it. But she didn't forget about it. Holy Spirit didn't forget about it. And so she went home, and that kept ringing through her mind and heart and mind and heart until finally she surrendered. Soft answer. It's not a wimpy word, but it's a word of respect. It changes, it grows, it grows her. You know, when I was a kid, uh, and I don't know why my family thought this would be a good idea, uh, but uh we had family night on Friday night. Now, family night's a good thing, right? We'd all agree, yeah, that's a that's a good plan. Friday, that's good. Uh but uh what we did is my mom made this big old bowl of popcorn, and we'd all sit in front of the TV, and we us kids and we're we're little, you know, we were seven years old, eight years old. And so we bring blankets and put on ourselves in front of the TV, and we would watch creature features, tales from the crypt, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom for Frankenstein. And it's those black and white horror movies. And and my mom and dad loved them, and what scared the bejeebers out of us, but it was still fun, you know, and you could see the the Frankenstein and the mummy and the creature from the black lagoon. I remember as a little boy thinking, you know what? If I come across Frankenstein or the creature or the mummy, uh I can see them from a distance. Hard, kind of hard to put those guys incognito, right? It's hard to hide those guys. They're just they're they're they're they're obvious. And I was a pretty quick little boy, so I'm sure I could outrun them. I was good. But the monster that that scared me the most was the vampire. Because vampire, it's just not fair. Vampires are incognito, right? You don't know they're vampires. Matter of fact, they look like they're fine on the outside. It's not until they open their mouth that they cause any problems. Uh most famous, Count Dracula. And Count Dracula, I mean, for crying out loud, he's a count. He's well respected, he's got a lot of money, he's got that hairdo thing going on, he's dressed to the ninth. He is somebody that everyone wants to be like. He might be someone like you'd see at church. Looks great, wonderful. Until he opens his mouth. Damage, destruction, pain. You know, worst part, I think, about being bit by a vampire. It's not that you you die, which you do, but you come back, according to vampire lore, as a vampire yourself. And then you bite other people and infect them. You know, issue is not are we victims of somebody's mouth? Yeah, yeah, every one of us have been multiple times. That's right. Absolutely. I can tell you stories from way back when. I'm sure you have some yourself. But what's a little bit scary is how many people are out there who've been the victims of our mouths. And they are spreading pain and hurt and toxicity and bitterness because they were bitten by us. And this is this is this is personal for me because my dad, I remember when my dad came to be a believer, he's a believer came to know Christ about the same time I did. And my dad grew up on the other side of the tracks. And so he had a long way to go. He did not grow up in a Christian home. I don't think his family didn't. I mean, if you can think, Tennessee Hills, still in the backyard, coon dogs, junk cars in the front yard. Uh, I would go, and everyone would, even the kids, they'd all sit around chewing snuff and smoking, watching World Federation Wrestling with no antenna on the TV. You couldn't see anything, but they were all kind of watching. This is how my dad grew up. And so he didn't hate God, but when he came to know Christ, oh man, there was a shift, there was a change. He had, again, a long way to go, but he was moving, reading the Bible all the time, going to church. Well, we moved just a couple years after this. And so we moved, we're out to the burbs now in Chicago, and so we went to this little church, and unfortunately, the church was more of a coven. It was filled with vampire Christians who chewed my dad up and spit him out. Now, my dad had a responsibility to do how he was going to deal with it. But I think that if soft words, if they would have pulled them aside and said, Hey, Bob, you know, this, that, the other thing, my dad would have responded. He wanted to grow, he knew. But he he stopped church. And I didn't find out all this until I was later on. My mom told me. But my dad would say, he said, you know, son, I can't be a good Christian. When I get to heaven, the Lord will help me. But until now and then, he was convinced he was a second class Christian. I think our church is, we need like a big picture of a Draa, right? With a red circle and a this is a non-vampire zone, right? That's what that's what the church is. Can you imagine what life might be like if our speech, like James tells us, was sanctified. You know, you go around a lot of churches and I I ask the pastors, what is the one thing you need to get over the hump? You know, to get you to the next level. And you hear the same answers. I already know what they're gonna say. Well, we need more money. Uh, we need more volunteers, we need more parking, we need more space. You know, yep, yep, all good things. But I think the number one thing they really need is a a congregation that is committed to uh holiness first kind of thing, maybe especially manifested through a sanctified tongue. Here's gonna be my challenge. We get we get 3.5 million words, right, this this year. Forget the past, what it is is is gone. But moving forward, so one year between now and next, next, let's pick Thanksgiving, uh, 3.5 million words. Here's the challenge. Every morning, would you take this challenge to pray a simple prayer? Now, this prayer is gonna take you like 20 seconds. Only two sentences in this prayer. First sentence, Lord, today I want to dedicate my tongue to you. First sentence. Number two, would you help my words to be soft and careful for your glory? Lord, I want to dedicate my tongue to you. Would you help my words to be soft and careful for your glory? If we prayed that sincerely, not not road, not autopilot, but we prayed it sincerely, can you imagine how that might impact moms and dads? How that might impact the family as a whole, between the parents and their kids, between the kids and their parents, between the kids and the siblings. Can you imagine what that might do at our works, at our schools, at our gyms, in the halls of our church? Can you imagine some some some visitor person walks in and they say, I don't know about the whole God thing. I don't know what I don't understand about all that. But I do know these folks speak a different language in this church. Man, I can't say I've ever been around folk who speak like this. I think this is biblical, right? They will know them by their love.

unknown: 34:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 34:47

So there's the challenge. And so let's take a second, we're gonna pray, and let me ask you, as you bow your heads, if you'd be willing to make that a commitment between you and your God. You may commit that to him now. Because Lord, we're we're all grateful for your grace and your forgiveness, knowing good and well that we have said a lot of things that hurt a lot of people in the past. And God, we're conscious too, and grateful for your grace as we think through, or maybe are conscious of anyway, things that have been said to us in our past that have hurt deeply. Maybe one's still alive. And God, we're really grateful, really grateful for those people you've placed into our lives who spoke into us words of grace and kindness and healing. Though we certainly don't deserve it, you know us better than anything, but Lord, they were words that pointed us to you. That's why we're here this morning. And we want to be used like that, Lord. Between now and the time we see you face to face, we want to be used like that. So we pray, Lord, that you would uh, when we trip and we fall going forward, probably this afternoon or on the way home, would you remind us of your grace, of your forgiveness? Would you help us to once again rededicate our ourselves, our tongues to you in the name of Jesus that he might be glorified through them in his name? Amen. Amen. Well, listen, I was supposed to have you all stand before I prayed, sorry. But you're dismissed out in the lobby. There are donuts and coffee. Eat up. I'm sure they're all very healthy. So go for it. Thanks.