The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E46 - Words

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

Hey, church family, if you've got your Bibles, it is Devo time. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 12, beginning in verse 33. I want to talk to you about the power of words. In our day and age, words are flying around all over the place. And words matter so much. I mean, if you think about it, think about how God got this whole thing started. God spoke into existence everything that is. Words matter. And in fact, I think a part of, you can't take this too far, you'll be a heretic, but part of what it means to be created in the image of God is that there was nothing and

God spoke and he spoke something into creation out of nothing, okay? Something into existence that did not exist before. And did you know that you and I have that similarly, we have a shadow of that kind of power with our own tongue. The Bible says in the book of James that in the tongue rests the power of life and death. That we can speak life into people,

that we can speak encouragement into people, we can speak blessings over people. I mean, you know, a big reason that I'm in ministry is simply because Coach Bull Lee looked at me after I preached my very first sermon and he said, you should be a preacher. Because when you teach the Bible, I see you come alive and I say,

see them come alive. And those words begin to ignite a thing in me that did not exist before he spoke it. Now, the opposite of that is true too. We see it especially all over these things. On Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, man, we see words and words and words that speak death that are critical, that are harming, that are spiteful, that are mean. And I'm just talking about Christians talking about each other, that our words matter. Our words matter more than I can even explain in words. Jesus talks about the power of words. Matthew 1233, he says, he's talking to the Pharisees. He says, either make the tree good and it's fruit good or make the tree bad and it's fruit bad. For the tree is known by its fruit. So how do you know what an apple tree is? Because you

walk up to it and it has apples. And if you walk up to a tree and it's oranges, you know that it is an orange tree. And if you walk up to a tree and it has bananas, you know it is a banana tree. This is what he is saying. And the fruit of the Christian, you'll be known by your fruit and the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, here's a big one, and kindness that our words are supposed to be kind to one another. So it's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Then he says to the Pharisees, you brew to vipers. How can you speak good when you are evil? It's a rhetorical question. The answer is you can't. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. This is why one reason we should pay attention to our words. For out of the abundance,

of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. I've told you this a bunch of times. If I shake up this water bottle, what comes out? Only water can come out. Only what is in here can come out of here even when it is shaken up. So when you see some kind of mean tweet or you see some kind of news segment

that you're not into or whatever it is, man, when somebody says something to you and you spew hatred out of your mouth, you know what the problem is, You don't have a mouth problem, you actually have a heart problem. And when you spew words of cynicism and complaining and negativity, it is evidence that you've got something going on deep down here in our heart, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Verse 35, the good person out of his good treasure brings forth good. And the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth good. evil. I tell you, this is scary, I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak. You ever speak some careless words? You ever say some things to your children that you wish you could take back? Never say something to your spouse that you wish you could take back? You ever post a tweet, put a Instagram post and the words associated with these things you wish you could take back. You see, the crazy thing about words are, man, it's like, words are like toothpaste. Once they get out of the tube, it's almost impossible to put those things

back in there. And the Bible says in the book of Proverbs, like Jesus says here, that you'll give an account for every careless word. The Bible says in the book of Proverbs, that careless words stab like a sword. So I have a pocket knife here. I always have a pocket knife. And I play with all the time, okay? And I've never stabbed anybody, okay, and I hope never to. But what the Bible is talking about is imagine, I mean, this is just a little pocket knife. It's not a big old sword. But my man, Dean, is right behind the camera right now filming this for me. He does this all the time. Yeah, Dean. And if I was playing with this knife and I was careless with it, like I don't, I don't have any ill will toward Dean. I like Dean a lot. He travels with me where we go and does an

incredible job doing ministry here at our church. And, I mean, Dean is going to be. I mean, Dean is got a lot going for him. I like Dean. I think he's super cool guy. I feel a little bit cooler when I'm hanging around Dean. He's got this fine beard. I mean, I like him a ton. When I walk in the room and see Dean, I smile. I do. I don't think that I've said too many mean things to Dean, but if I was playing with this knife right now and I began flipping it around and I was careless with it and I carelessly let it slip out of my hand and that knife stabbed Dean. Guess what would happen? Dean would hurt. It would damage him. We would have to stop the Devo time here immediately. I would have to call somebody.

If it was bad enough, I'd have to call the ambulance and say, can you come get Dean? Because my knife stabbed him in the neck or something. Okay. Now, guess how much it would help Dean if I said to him, whoa, whoa, whoa, but Dean, hold on, hold on, but I didn't mean to. Well, Dean would not, automatically in that moment, Dean's body would not cease to bleed and cease to be cut. And just because my intentions weren't to hurt him. You see, intentions are pretty useless, and here's what's crazy, especially when it comes to words and careless words,

is that we almost always judge everybody else by their actions, but we love to judge ourselves by our intentions. One time I said some careless things to my wife Gretchen, and she got very upset, as she should have. but when she got upset I was like, why are you getting upset? You shouldn't be upset. I didn't mean the way you took it

is not the way I meant it, therefore you shouldn't be upset. And she shared this very helpful illustration with me. She said, if you accidentally ran over my foot with your truck, but then you jumped out of the truck and you said, oh my gosh, I didn't mean to, it would not fix my foot.

My foot would be no less broken because of your intention. Same thing can be true with our words, careless words. stab like a sword. Church of 1122. The opposite of care lists is be careful. May we be people whose words are full of care. In Ephesus 428, Paul says, I memorized that like in the King James, so I apologize. Paul says, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is helpful for the edification of the hearer. And here's what this means.

sometimes I've heard people say to me, well, we just stand for truth. Did you know, we do stand for truth, for sure, but truth is a person. His name is Jesus. He says, I am the way the truth in the life. No one comes with the Father except through me. Did you know that just because something is true doesn't mean you necessarily need to say it? But Paul says in Ephesians 428, but the only things that we say are to build up the needs if they are helpful to the hearer. that our words should be full of care. Now, I'm not saying that we only say easy things if Dean had some kind of jacked up area in his life or some sin in his life or some, he was going down some pathway that I could see that was going to lead to destruction, then it would be, it would be constructive for me

to build him up to say hurtful things to him, but that has to be said full of care, careful. We tell the truth in love. not to cut down, which, by the way, guess what? You have a transcript of many of the things that you have said lately online or private text to a spouse or your kids. I dare you to go through those things and think, if you were Jesus, how would you judge those words to the people closest to you?

So the Bible says, careless words stab like a sword, but wise words lead to healing. You see, again, if you get stabbed, that's a moment in time, that is an event. Every single one of us can remember a moment in time where somebody said something careless or hurtful to us, and you can remember, you can remember where you were, you can remember what she smelled like. In that moment, there's an injury. And honestly, you may still have a scar from that injury, but wise words lead to healing.

Healing is a process that takes a long time. Church of 1122, our country, our city needs a whole lot of healing. May we be a people that speak wise words, words that are careful, full of care, and may our words be filled with life. May we speak gospel-filled words to one another. May the days of the church just eating itself alive and criticizing everything that everybody does and the negativity and the complaining and the arguing,

may these days be days of the past and may going forward we be a people that speaks life. Words are so important that when Abraham blesses Jacob instead of Esau and Esau comes in later and says, hey, dad, why don't you just kind of null and void his blessing and just give me the blessing? Abraham said, I can't do that because words are so powerful. words do what they are going to do.

So Church of 1122, may we be the kind of people that use our words full of care and full of life. May we speak blessings over people. If you're a parent, bless your children. If your spouse, bless your husband, bless your wife. If you have parents, would you call them and bless them? May we speak life. May we speak the kind of words that are full of the gospel and the hope of Jesus Christ. May we speak words that lead to unity and reconciliation and drawing us together, our words are so powerful.

In fact, the way Jesus ends this, he wants to remind us of how powerful our words are. Again, he warns us will be held accountable for every careless word we speak. For by your words, you will be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned. Do you know how you're justified by your words? You see, Paul says in Romans 10, 9, that if we believe in our heart that Jesus has been raised from the dead, and we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. And so with the same power of God demonstrated by our confession that Jesus is our Lord, which leads to our salvation, may we use these powerful tools that we have been given.

our words to bring blessing and healing. Let's pray. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray for the Church of 1122 that we would speak words full of care, that words that go out on social media, that words that go out to our family and friends, that words that go out on text or however they go out, Lord,

may they be full of life. May they reflect our hearts that are full. of you, the Holy Spirit. God, may we be known by our fruits and may our fruit be love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and gentleness and self-control. And Lord, we pray all this in the good, strong name of Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh.