Live Free with Josh Howerton - Taming the Tongue | Ep. 305 | Friday, April 5, 2024

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

What do you do when you feel anger rising inside you? Proverbs 15:1 and Proverbs 21:23 warn us to watch our words when we are angry. Instead of spouting off whatever hurtful words come to mind, the Holy Spirit can help us respond with a gentle answer when we come to Him and admit our weakness. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Well, it is Friday, and I know that many of you are super excited about that. Man, I love, love, love weekends. I cannot wait to worship with people this weekend.

I'm looking forward to unpacking God's Word this weekend. I'm excited to see friends this weekend, and to be honest, I cannot wait to watch the Final Four. I'm a basketball junkie, and this is my favorite time of the year. This week on the Daily Drive, we've been talking about the Fatal Four, not the Final Four, but the Fatal Four. Four things that can take you and me out. Now, pride is the number one seed, and really everything finds its roots in that one. For the past couple of days,

we've been talking about anger, and we've seen a bunch of scriptures like the one in James 1, which says, be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. Many of you've had that ringing in your ears and your heart for the past few days. Unhealthy anger does not produce the kind of good

inside-out kind of life God wants to do in you and me. And it gave you a strategy, a couple of plays that you can run, if you will, that help in managing our anger. We said yesterday, the first step is to reflect before you react. To reflect before you react. Anger is the second emotion. And before you just explode, stop and reflect.

And ask God, what is it really that's making me so mad? Is it just my pride, rearing its ugly head? What is it in me right now that's making me so angry? We talked about how the game plan is also not just to reflect before you react, but to remember the results. to think it all the way through. To say to yourself, if I say this, if I react like this,

if I come with this kind of energy, this kind of tone, this kind of volume, what kind of damage will this do? And then one more today. Restrain your remarks. Someone told me God gave us two ears and one mouth. We need to learn to use them proportionally.

Anybody else's mouth get them in trouble? Ever seemed like you got two mouths and no ears? Here's a few scriptures to stick in your heart today. Proverbs 21 2123 says, if you want to stay out of trouble, be careful what you say. Proverse 151 says a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. And James, the God that told us to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slowly get angry, he writes this in Chapter 3.

He says, indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we'd be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way. We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth, and a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches, but a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire, and the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.

People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish. no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. Man, that sounds pretty hopeless, doesn't it? Did you catch that? No one can tame the tongue. No one can actually restrain their remarks. That is, it's not possible without the help of the Holy Spirit. He can enable us to do all of that. The fruit of the Holy Spirit working in us is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control. That is God's best version of us. We cannot transform ourselves.

That's why it's so crucial to live every moment in the awareness of the presence and power of God, to humble yourself in the moment and asking for help in the heat of the moment to renew your mind daily to its word, to apply all these things that we've been talking about. So the next time you're engaged in a disagreement with your spouse, the next time somebody cuts you off in traffic, next time you get a little tip, with the kids next time when things aren't going so great with your folks or something goes wrong at work or school and you have a confrontational conversation let god remind you of this verse memorize it be quick to listen slow to speak be quick to listen slow to speak and slow to get angry

listen to him this week when he says come on reflect before you react remember the results and restrain your remarks a gentle answer will calm things down right now a gentle answer will calm down right now and you say Holy Spirit thank you thank you for the reminder just help me right now not to say the wrong thing the hurtful thing the thing that's going to throw fuel on the fire help me just shut up and smile give me the humility the honesty the courage but also the gentleness and restraint I was reading about Bobby Jones one of the greatest golfers of all time I didn't know that anger almost derailed his career almost ruined his life he was one of the

greatest golfers of all time and eventually he was known as for being like a classy gentleman. But when he was young, he would get so mad that he could not see straight. In his very first British Open, he played so poorly in the wind that he shot a 46 on the front side. So he teed up a ball, aimed it at the water, and intentionally set one flying into the sea, vowing to never come back to Scotland and stomped off the course. His anger almost took him out. Well, a close friend took him aside, and through his counsel he began to go to work on the route of his anger, some unresolved internal issues. Now he never lost his competitive fire,

but eventually he got a handle on his unresolved anger, and nine years later, he went back to Scotland, and he won the British Open. He just resolved not to let anger ruin his career. And I resolved not to let it take me out either, and so should you. We can beat this, and life is so much more important than golf.

You may never become golf's best version of you, but you can become God's best version of you. Let's commit ourselves to pardoning with the Holy Spirit of God, to manage our anger in a healthy way. Hope you have a great weekend. See you back on Monday. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship,

join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. standard time. For more information, visit lakepoint.church slash daily drive.