Colossians - Building Up & Not Tearing Down

God Centered Theology

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Sort of a poem -slash -interesting story to start with.

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It says, I watched them tearing a building down, a gang of men in a busy town, with a ho -heave -ho and a yell.

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They swung a beam and the side wall fell. I asked the foreman, are these men skilled and the kind you would hire if you were to build?

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He laughed and said, why no, indeed, just common laborers is all

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I need. They can easily reckon a day or two, that which has taken builders years to do.

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So I said to myself as I went on my way, what part in the game of life do

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I play? Am I shaping my deeds to a well -made plan, carefully measuring with a rule and a square?

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Patiently doing the very best that I can? Or am I a wrecker who walks to town, content with the labor of tearing down?

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There's a lot that goes into building something. There is intricate planning, detail, labor needs, there's skill involved, there's careful measuring.

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Those of you that have ever built anything here, you probably know the reference, measure twice, cut once.

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I might have failed in that regard at one time. To which

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I was told, to which I have never forgotten, measure twice, cut once. There's patience needed, there's concern needed to tear down, to destroy, to demolish.

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No skill is needed, no patience needed. There's no need for planning, no need for detail.

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Tearing down is easy, building up is difficult. Tearing down is quick, building up takes time.

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Tearing down is hurtful, but building up is healthy. Now, last week we looked at Colossians 3, 5 through right around 7, and we're not going to re -preach that, we'll just give a quick summary just to set the context.

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We noticed that as we look above, harking back to Colossians 3, 1 through 4, directing your minds towards those things above, as we look above, we will kill sin.

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As we direct our mind towards things above, we will come into greater submission to Christ in all areas.

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So Colossians 3, 5 it said, therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, which is covetousness, which amounts to idolatry.

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We covered all of this last week. It says because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sins of disobedience.

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And we notice that sin brings wrath, not blessing. Sin brings judgment, not blessing.

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Sin brings decline, not growth. Sin brings bondage, not freedom. Putting our sin to death will bring freedom from that sin.

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And tearing down idols in our life will bring freedom from them. It says in him you also once walked when you were living in them.

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And the summary for last week is that it's no longer who we are. We're a new creature in Christ.

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The chains of sin no longer bind us. It no longer has to dominate our thinking. We are free to walk in righteousness.

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Verse 8 is where we're going to pick up today. It says, but now you also, and this is continuing on with what he has already said.

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He said, put them all aside. This is a word when it's translated put them all aside is a word that was commonly used in the culture.

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The idea of laying something aside to renounce something, to take off like clothes.

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A word commonly referred to when you would, if you had to go and change clothes you'd take off a certain pair of clothes and put on something else.

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Salvation is a lot like taking off the old dirty clothes of sin and putting on the new clothes of righteousness.

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Now this will not be fully realized until the Lord returns and we are fully realized the glorification of the new bodies that we will put on, so on and so forth.

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In the interim we are to be, we're going to see this once we move past this scripture, we are to be participating in the renovation project, the renewal, the sanctification, the transformation that should be going on daily in our lives.

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He says, put them all aside, renounce what you used to be because it's not who you are anymore.

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And then he gives another list of sins that are very typical, things that are very hard to put aside because of the flesh.

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And all of these have something in common. They are usually, they are either sins of speech, or they are sins that will lead to sins of speech.

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And we'll see that as we move through them. First one he lists is anger. This word anger is a deep, resentful bitterness that's produced over a period of time.

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We're going to see in a minute when we look at wrath, that's more rage, more instant. This anger is that deep, very resentful bitterness.

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And it takes a long time to get like that. It's a settled anger. It proceeds from an internal disposition which steadfastly opposes someone or something based on what the beholder has considered to be wrong, unjust, or evil.

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Now, you notice with this particular word, it's not focusing on whether the thing that's being beholden is just, evil, or otherwise.

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It could very well be. I think one of the, we were talking about this at Sunday school about some of the things we see in our country today, particularly about abortion, so on and so forth.

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And it's perfectly okay to have a righteous anger about these things, to be concerned about these things.

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But I know earlier in my life, and I know it was a temptation for a lot of Christians today, is if we so focus on, and they call it in politics a one -issue voter, things like that.

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If you so focus on one particular thing, over time that anger can get deep -seated in your soul, and you can become bitter about all things surrounding that subject, to the point where you're not so much concerned about the sin anymore.

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You're actually angry and bitter at the ones committing the sins, and hate them in a way that is just steadfast and settled.

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Wrath, now this is the general wickedness, or a wicked disposition. And this is more where you get an understanding of rage, and just this general wrath.

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And it shouldn't be a hallmark. It shouldn't be a descriptor of who a Christian is. Now, we all fail.

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We all sin. We have moments of anger. We have moments of wrath. If you have children, you've probably had moments of rage a time or two.

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Especially if you stepped on Legos like you have in my house, rage tends to fill you pretty quickly. But rage is not a hallmark of the believer.

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Anger is not a hallmark of the believer. Obedience is. Submission is.

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Gentleness. Go back and read Galatians 5 where it says, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long -suffering.

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As my pastor says back home, long -suffering. Patience. All these things.

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He also mentions malice, which is another form.

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Actually, excuse me, I got it wrong. Wrath is your general wickedness. I left malice out of my notes.

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I believe malice is the one that is more indicative of rage. He moves on to slander. Now, this is a

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Greek word meaning abusive language which switches right for wrong and vice versa. It is a word that when pertaining to God is usually translated blasphemy.

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So, there's a really cool note here. This particular Greek word, which when it refers to humans, so if it's a sin

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I'm doing against another human, it's usually we'll see it translated slander. But it's actually the same word that we get the word blasphemy from.

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So, to do it against God would be blasphemy. Usually they'll translate it differently to show that distinction.

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But essentially all slander is, all blasphemy is, is it's making false and damaging statements about someone rather than against something.

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So, if you're making damaging, insulting, or hurtful statements about God that would inaccurately portray

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His character, or what He has said, that would be blasphemy. I can even, against Daniel, I can actually blaspheme against Daniel the person if I say something damaging or hurtful about his character, or reputation, so on and so forth.

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And slander is something that there's just nothing in the Word of God that would ever give you the right to slander.

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Now, these are just a few that are mentioned. Galatians 5 when you look at the fruit of the flesh, and there's other places where Paul deals with, and has different lists of sins.

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And you'll see a lot of carry over, a lot of similarities in his listings. You'll see some distinctions, some differences.

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But he generally covers the same ones. Now, what's really interesting about this particular list, is they're all lists of speech.

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You see, he finishes up saying, one of the things we're supposed to put off, it's kind of like he's almost saying, in case you didn't get the other ones, just go ahead and put off all abusive speech from your mouth.

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Just get rid of all of it. And the word abusive speech is filthy speech, you know, filthy mouth, filthy things, degrading things, things that would tear down, not build up.

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And put the question in my mind, it's a really interesting one to be had, but why do you think inspired scripture spends so much time and puts such an emphasis on putting aside abusive and slanderous speech from our mouths?

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It's all over the place. We could probably do 20 sermons on it. It's everywhere.

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We're going to look at a few of the scriptures. Again, we'll be able to look at them exhaustively. But it's everywhere. There's so much about what we say.

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Now, there's a lot about what we do, but there's so much about what we say. Well, let's take a look at a few places.

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Matthew chapter 15, if you want to turn with me in your Bibles, or you can just listen as I read.

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In Matthew chapter 15, Peter comes up. They just had a parable given to them.

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And Peter says in verse 15, he says, "'Explain the parable to us.' And Jesus said, "'Are you still lacking in understanding also?

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Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is eliminated?' And notice in verse 18 he says, "'But the things that proceed out of the mouth,' and this word proceed out is a gushing forth.

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It is revealing in nature. So the understanding is that which proceeds out of the mouth, it's sort of the understanding,' there's a quote,

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I couldn't find the author of this quote. He says something to the effect of, "'The tongue is the ambassador of the heart.'"

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So you think about it. We say as America ambassadors to other countries, and there's supposed to be a representation, or a gushing forth, a revealing of who we are as Americans to that country.

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Well, the tongue, the speech, is an ambassador, a revealing of what is in the heart.

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He says, "'The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.

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For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.'"

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So you see some of the same sins popping up. "'These are the things which defile the man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.'"

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So the context he's given there is about what proceeds out of the heart of man. So these sins, if they are engaged in, the reason that Christians should not be doing these things, why we should lay aside or renounce or put off these things, is because to engage in these sins, it's showing what's in your heart.

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And God says, "'I changed your heart. I've transformed your heart.

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I've took out the heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. I've raised you to spiritual life.

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These things should not mark who you are anymore.'" James chapter 3.

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James chapter 3 and verse 4. James says, "'Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder whenever the inclination of the pilot desires.'"

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Think about it. Such a large ship, governed and controlled by such a small thing.

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"'Based on the inclinations and the desires of that which is steering that boat can turn it which way it's going to go and uses such a small instrument to get it where it is going.'"

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If you think about large vehicles, they all basically have about the same size steering wheel.

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Such a small thing to control such a large object. Verse 5, "'So also the tongue is a small part of the body and yet it boasts of great things.'"

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And he says, "'See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire.'"

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Our man on the picture of the title slide with the great mountain of fire coming out of his mouth really paints the picture.

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There's stories of how people get in trouble, the kids playing different things, house fires, forest fires, and these things get started and it starts as a small thing before you turn around and can really open your eyes again.

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It's this big old forest fire. He says, "'See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire and the tongue is a fire.'"

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The very word of iniquity. "'The tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body.'"

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It's very interesting. Paul is so self -aware of sin.

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In Corinthians he talks about the fact that most sins are done outside the body or they're done to something external, but sins of fornication and sexual sins are things that actually damage the body.

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So in concert with the tongue, he says, "'The tongue, while being a small thing, actually defiles your whole body and it sets on fire the course of our life and is set on fire by hell.'"

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It's amazing to me to think how what we say and the culture of our speech, we may not think of our speech as being part of our culture, but it is.

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We hear, and rightfully so, a lot of complaining about lyrics and music and what is allowed to be said on TV and all these things and we rightfully get angry about these things, but think about it.

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It's a culture. No doubt some of you probably remember a time, and I'm not getting into this whole old versus young thing, but some of you probably remember a time when certain things just wouldn't be said on TV.

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But forget about TV. What about to each other? My goodness,

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I can't even watch news anymore. Political pundits, and it's like we were talking about this when

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I was in Sunday school too. You all hear me talk about it a lot. We live with so much more imbalance and avoid extremes. All we see is extremes.

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And people just get right past. I'm not an expert, but I am a somewhat trained debater.

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It's part of presenting a sermon. It's presenting an argument. They don't even get into that anymore.

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They go straight ad hominem. It's, you're evil. You're horrible. You're this. I'm like, Usually in a debate, you know you've got it won when the other side starts attacking you, but they don't even care about that anymore.

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You can't even watch it, so it's abusive speech. It's filthy. It's wicked. It's hard to find any shows to watch without, you know, you don't have to get all into it, but you know what they say.

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It's horrible language. It's a culture. Just like the first word we looked at, anger, this deep resentful bitterness, the culture of bad speech, the culture of abusive speech and tearing down.

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No Christian, no person wakes up one morning and just starts like that. It takes time.

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It takes a rewiring of the brain. No one can tame the tongue.

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It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. God can.

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One of the beauties of the Christian life, one of the beauties of having freedom in Christ is we can take all those sins, every one of them, and especially those that haunt us and seem like they just dominate us, and we don't have to get rid of them on our own.

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You give them to God. Say, Lord, I can't carry this burden on my own. And Jesus says,

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My yoke is easy. It's light. Carry it. Let me help you carry this burden because after all,

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I paid the price for your sin to begin with. There is no sin in your life that God cannot help you conquer.

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And it just so happens that the particular sin of speech is a very difficult one to get over.

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I know. In my 19, 18 -year -old body, 20, very young, filthy mouth.

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Oh, how I mourn how I used to talk. And I would try and try and say,

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I'm going to do better tomorrow. Never would. Until I finally one day say, Lord, I am a

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Christian. You have saved me. This is not what I'm supposed to be.

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And I am giving this to you to carry it for me. Lord, cleanse me and create in me a new heart.

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And Lord, show me the better way. It goes back to the sermon about the comeback churches. Don't motivate with the fear of death.

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Motivate by inspiring through the joy of living. That doesn't mean there's an absence of accountability. It doesn't mean there's an absence of calling things straight and calling it like it is.

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But the key difference is for so long, I was doing it because of the fear of the consequences of what could happen and not understanding that the real reason you don't need to speak wrongly is because there is a better way to speak.

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The whole point of this sermon is not so much to focus on consequences of speech that tears down, but to focus on the joy that can come from speech that builds up.

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Any community, any church, any household, whatever the context, that is ruled and dominated by abusive speech or speech that tears down, does anybody want to live in that?

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It's miserable. But a house or a church or a community or a country that has speech that builds up, even if there are times when sin must be addressed, which is actually a hallmark of healthy speech, is to, in love, deal with it, but it's still part of that healthy building up speech.

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Everybody would want to live in that. Verse 9, With it, the tongue we bless our

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Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God.

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One of the things and one of the reasons we need to be so careful about what we say and who we're saying it to and how we're saying it, why is it so important?

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Because if you curse someone or if you talk down to someone, whether they're a believer or an unbeliever, you're doing it to someone that's been made in the image of God, just like you have.

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That's why abortion so grieves my heart, because we're ending lives, not potential, real lives, that are made in the image of God, just like the ones that's performing the surgery or the procedure to kill them.

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Verse 10, it says, From the same mouth comes both blessing and cursing. And this is the point here in James I really want to focus on.

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He says, My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.

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My friends, these things ought not to be this way. One, the world is what it is, but one of the benefits to having such darkness, to having such sin, rampant.

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Forget about the country, let's just take Emporia. Such rampant darkness.

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Think about the light that you can shine in our community by living for Christ.

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Now, true, we want to affect larger than Emporia, that goes without saying, but start where you live.

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Start in your own life. Start in your home. Branch it out to this church and then to the community and to your street and your neighborhood.

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In the midst of such darkness, light shines the brightest. We have probably some of the harder circumstances, some of the more biggest uphill battle to climb as Christianity becomes more and more persecuted.

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But we also at the same time have probably the biggest opportunity to reach the lost for Christ because of the light that shines in us, through us, to everyone around us.

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And our speech and what we say can be one of the greatest mechanisms that God can use to reach people.

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You know, they largely say, you know, it's great you say this, but I want to see how you act. That's true.

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But my friends, what you say is very important. How we say it.

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And even if you're trying to deal with something that's incorrect or wrong, can you do that in love?

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And love doesn't excuse. Love doesn't, you know, act like it isn't or doesn't need to be dealt with.

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There's a way to go about things. And my friends, if you want to shock this community, if you want to shock your homes and this church and everything around us, we say, there is something in the water in that building.

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What has God to hold to those people? You have such a great opportunity. Say hello to that person that walks by you out there.

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If you see someone from another church, uplift them. One of the things that Pastor Larry down there at Assembly of God Church convicts me of a lot.

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He says, Andy, you know, I didn't used to do this, but now I'm walking into Walmart and I walk by somebody, you know, they got that look on their face and you can just tell there's something on their mind.

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I'll just strike up a conversation. You find out they've been to the doctor and they're having a bad day. He's all right on the spot to say, can

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I pray with you? He just starts praying at Walmart. I'm used to people wearing two layers of pajamas and walking around like they haven't had a bath for five days.

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That's usually what you see at Walmart. Here's a Christian praying with somebody in Walmart. That's crazy.

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But it's Christian. Is it not? My goodness.

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How many opportunities your pastor has missed just to pray with somebody? My goodness.

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It's not so much about speech, whether it builds up or tears down. It's about speech that edifies.

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Building up speech. And this may be a non -believer you pray with randomly at a Walmart or wherever it is you find yourself.

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And some of you may do this. I don't know. And if you do good, infect the rest of us. Get the rest of us to do it.

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But man, you're talking about building someone up when you pray for them.

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After all, we're doing a culture of prayer in 2019. But you pray for them. My goodness.

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Such a rewarding thing. Well, why does all this matter as we seek to wrap up for today?

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Well, if you were here last week, remember what I quoted at the beginning of the sermon? Remember what Charles Spurgeon said?

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He said, Christian, what hast thou to do with sin? Hath it not cost thee enough already?

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It may not be speech. It may be something else in your life. I don't know. Some of you

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I know better than others. And some of you know me better than others. We have some idea of what we go through.

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But there's also always going to be those things that you keep so close to the vest that nobody may not know about.

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And that's fine. We don't have a requirement to confess our sins to all our fellow Christians, only to God.

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But it's helpful if you have someone you trust, someone that you can talk to, someone that you can confide in.

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I would argue that for a married person, that would be primarily your spouse. But sin, has it not cost us enough already?

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My goodness. I came in on the tail end of Sunday school and we're talking about all the different issues with this, and this, and this, and how it just creates this big old mess.

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And it's like, it's like, what do you do about it? Adoptions and all these different things and the systems, and it's just like, it seems like the whole thing is set up to be against us.

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And if you're not careful, that would discourage you to do nothing. Or it may tempt you to be angry and bitter and resentful.

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And then that certainly wasn't the tone of the room. The room was hopeful and we want to try to do what we can. But my goodness, it's sin.

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It's evil hearts. Why do we have 60 million abortions just in America since Roe v.

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Wade? Because of the evil intents of the heart of man. Yes, we have many different things we can blame, we want to blame.

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When it comes right down to it, it's about sin and evil and Satan. And sin will cost you far more than it tells you it will.

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It will take you much farther than you ever intended to go. Hath it not cost thee enough already?

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Sin decays. It corrupts. It dominates. It destroys. And we don't have to live that way because Christ has set us free.

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Sin is to no longer dominate our thinking and our speech and our actions. We are to be completely and continually renewed in Christ, continually conformed to the one who set us free.

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Christ is in the business of building up and not tearing down.

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And then lastly, Ephesians 4 .29 It says, Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

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Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

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My friends, this type of sinful speech, while it may hurt the one it's being said to, ultimately the problem with it is it grieves the

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Holy Spirit of God. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, and be kind to one another.

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What's the bottom line? What's the application? You need to be praying for and speaking well of each other.

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It starts here. You need to be praying for and speaking well of your church.

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Non -Christians, carnal Christians, speak badly of each other in their church.

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Whether it's in the community, whether it's in -house, wherever it is, that's what they do. We need to be different.

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We need to be a called -out people. We need to be speaking well of each other and of our church.

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You need to be praying for and speaking well of your pastor. You need to be praying for and looking for opportunities to speak well of your

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Savior and how He can save others. Because after all, as Alan Sher told us last

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Thursday, we do serve an awesome God. And you know what?

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A Christian, I'm sorry, excuse me, a non -Christian, they're very observant. Wherever you're at, that if you don't speak well, whether it's of someone in your church or your pastor or whatever, they're going to notice.

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They're going to say, why would I want to talk about or think about or worship a

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Jesus that can't even transform the people that claim to worship Him? That one hits home.

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Even at 35, I still have so far to go. And we need each other.

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Those of you that are here that are older and mature, we need you to be an example for us younger ones.

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Proverbs 8, 21 says, death and life are in the power of the tongue. Death and life in the power of the tongue.

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Let your tongue be used for life and not for death.

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Build up and don't tear down. And my friends, that light, not even getting into everything else we can be doing, but that one simple change in all of us will so shine in the darkness of sin that we see around us each and every single day that you will sit back in your chair or lay down your head at night in your bed and you will think, oh my word.

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Look at what God did with something as simple as what we say.