“Guard My Tongue!” – FBC Morning Light (5/13/2024)

Well, a good

Monday morning to you. Hope you had a wonderful day yesterday, meeting with God's people and worshipping the

Lord together. Hope you learned something from God's word and hope it was an encouragement to you, no matter how

His truth hit you yesterday. It may have been encouraging, it may have been convicting, it may have been comforting.

However the Lord used His word in your life, give thanks for that. That's how we grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ.

Well today in our Bible reading we're continuing with the Psalms of David and all this week we'll be in the

Psalms, but we're going to switch, we're going to flip from Psalms of David, those are going to come to an end, to the

Psalms of Asaph. So today we're reading Psalms 140 to 142.

I'm going to zero in on one verse in Psalm 143 where David offers a prayer to the

Lord and he says this, Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips.

Boy, isn't that a prayer that we all need to pray? Set a guard over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips?

I don't know about you, but you know, my mouth can too easily get me in trouble. How about yours?

Probably some things I've said on the Morning Light Devotionals over the last three and a half years or however long it's been since we started this have probably got me in trouble with some people.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised. That's part of life in this fallen world.

I need the Lord to set a guard over my mouth and so do you. So here are some specific prayer requests regarding this guard.

So I need the Lord to guard me and all these, I'm going to give you five words, they all begin with the letter

T. That'll help us remember it, I hope. I mean, after all, preachers have to alliterate, right?

So first of all, I need the Lord to guard me so that I say the right thing and don't say the wrong thing.

I need a guard against the wrong thing. Sometimes what comes out of my mouth should never be said.

It should just never be said. And sometimes even though what I say, there's not anything, it's not a lie or filthy or anything like that, but it just doesn't need to be said, you see.

So I need the Lord to help me to say the right thing and not the wrong thing.

A second T is time. Timing is important in our words and what we say.

And there are occasions when it's best not to say something and wait for a more opportune time.

So we don't speak this thing

I'm going to say when the person I'm speaking to is not ready to receive it. They're in a foul mood, perhaps, or they just don't want to hear it.

Okay, wait, be patient. The time will be right. So I need the

Lord to set a guard over my mouth so that what I say is said at the right time.

And then the third T is temper, temper. What is the temper behind my words?

You know, recently in our Sunday morning worship service, I preached in Galatians chapter 6 in verse 1, where Paul says that when a brother is overtaken in some transgression, he says, you who are spiritual, restore such a one, but in the spirit of gentleness, a spirit of gentleness.

So we go to the erring brother or sister in Christ, and we don't go with a haughty, caustic, critical spirit.

We go with a spirit of gentleness. That's our temper. So what is the temper of my words?

And then third or fourth T that's connected with this is the tone, the tone.

Sometimes I can say the right thing at the right time, and, you know,

I'm trying to have the right spirit about me, but my tone, the tone of my words can be off.

They can be, they can have a harshness to them, they can have an edge to them that stings and hurts rather than softens the heart and helps.

So I need to be careful about my tone. Lord set a guard over my lips so that my tone is right.

And then the last T, of course, is truth, is truth. Is what

I'm saying actually true? Is it a stretching of the truth?

Is it a shading of the truth? Is it partial truth? You know, where couples often in their little tips back and forth can get in trouble is in their use of absolute thing, absolute words, like you always say this, you always do this, you never do that.

Is that really true? Is that really true? Use of that absolute is not accurate, then it's not true.

So, you know, I need to be sure that I'm speaking the truth and that I'm speaking it in love, that goes back to the tone, and I'm speaking it in the right manner, my temper, the timing is good, so I want to be sure that my words are spoken at the right time and that the thing that I'm saying really does need to be said.

So, may the Lord set a guard over our lips. Father, we need help with this, we all do, the tongue is a world of iniquity,

James tells us, and we need your help, we need your spirit to control our tongues.

May you do such a work in our lives, we pray, in Jesus' name, for his sake, amen. Alright well listen, have a good rest of your