Great Sermon on Anger and the Heart

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September 23, 2018

In this sermon Jeff Durbin preaches about the abundance of the heart. We as Christians must realize that the way we speak to others matters to God, and we must stop being lazy when it come to guarding our speech.

00:00: So we're going to read Matthew chapter 33, starting in verse, sorry, Matthew chapter 12, starting in verse 22.
00:08: Hear now the words of the living and true God. Then a demon -oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him.
00:17: So the man spoke and saw, and all the people were amazed and said, can this be the son of David?
00:24: But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, it is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man cast out demons.
00:33: Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.
00:42: If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself, how then will his kingdom stand?
00:49: And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they will be your judges.
00:56: But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
01:03: Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man?
01:09: Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
01:16: Therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the
01:21: Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the
01:28: Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
01:36: Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad. For the tree is known by its fruit.
01:44: You brood of vipers, how can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
01:52: The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
02:01: I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak.
02:07: For by your words, you'll be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned. Let's pray.
02:16: Father, this text, this text says so much about what we want to avoid.
02:33: Lord Jesus, there's so much here that you said that it's the kind of thing that people avoid reading their
02:40: Bibles because. We don't want to come to terms with it.
02:46: We don't want to face our words. Lord, you know our hearts. You know that we avoid being looked at by you.
02:53: We avoid scrutiny. We don't want people to see what's truly there. We don't want to be honest about what's in us.
03:01: And yet, here we are, God, in your providence. You've moved us through your words to this moment to face some hard truths.
03:10: And God, I can't do what needs to be done here. I can't. I can't, as a pastor, change anyone's hearts and minds,
03:18: God, you know. And so, Father, we do come before you as your people right now asking you to please help us to understand your word.
03:25: Help us, God, to be changed by it. God, fill us with hope. Fill us with hope for the future. Hope, Lord, in you.
03:32: And God, please, please, Father, meet us now by your spirit. Open our eyes to ourselves.
03:40: Open our eyes to our true condition. God, I pray for everyone in this room, Lord, young people especially, that have been around church and church culture for so long and had your words in our homes and in our hands.
03:54: God, I pray that you would not allow us to, in this moment, be distracted. Don't allow us,
04:00: God, to be jaded and indifferent towards these truths that we know are there and we avoid like it's the plague.
04:07: Help us, God, to understand your word. Teach us by your spirit. Get me out of the way.
04:13: Let people forget me and only remember you and what you've said. We pray this in Jesus' name.
04:19: Amen. Matthew chapter 12, Jesus is displayed to be the Messiah, the king himself, bringing his kingdom into the world.
04:27: Again, Matthew, if you heard those last couple of messages, Matthew is highlighting throughout the entire book that Jesus is that promised king bringing the kingdom, son of David, right?
04:38: And Matthew pulls from Isaiah chapter 42 in Matthew 12, that's an Old Testament text that shows, it gives a display of what is the world going to be like when the
04:49: Messiah comes. And it talks about the Messiah bringing justice. It talks about the Messiah being merciful to the broken.
04:56: It talks about the Messiah not giving up until he's established justice in the world, that the coastlands would wait for his law.
05:03: You have this victorious vision of the Messiah. In Isaiah 42, Matthew pulls it over and he says, yep, that's
05:09: Jesus. This one walking among us, that was Jesus. Isaiah 42, his kingdom has come. And then here you have in the text this collision that happens often in the
05:19: New Testament, but in particular, it happens often in Matthew. Matthew highlights it.
05:25: Between the religious establishment of Jesus' day and, of course, Jesus coming into collision.
05:31: Now, here is this epic moment where it's not simply the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the religious establishments trying to trip
05:39: Jesus up in his words. This isn't Jesus being brought before them and they're saying, should we pay taxes,
05:46: Jesus? What do you think, right? And Jesus knows their thoughts. They're trying to trap Jesus, get him in trouble with the authorities.
05:52: This isn't that kind of thing. They're not coming up to Jesus and trying to find something wrong in what he's saying. This is like amped up a level.
05:59: Now it goes beyond trying to trip the son of David, trying to get him caught and in trouble.
06:05: Now they make an actual claim about Jesus. They see Jesus engage in an act of mercy to a demon -oppressed man who was blind and mute.
06:16: And here's an amazing moment. He's blind. He can't see. He's mute.
06:21: He can't speak. Can't see. He can't talk. This man is completely broken and a source of this affliction is demonic.
06:31: And here you have this epic moment where Jesus, humble, lowly, Matthew just highlights that.
06:38: He gives this act of mercy to this demon -oppressed man. And now the guy sees. And now he speaks.
06:45: And the response of the religious establishment is not awe. Like, what is this?
06:52: How can this person be blind? And now they actually see. This is an amazing miracle.
06:59: It doesn't just happen that way. And they should have seen that the works of God were right before them.
07:05: Only God, the creator of the universe, can give somebody their sight back, can give somebody their tongue back.
07:11: See, the devil can pull magic tricks, right? Charades. But the devil can't manipulate creation itself.
07:19: He can't give somebody who's blind their eyesight back. And they should have known better. And so they see
07:25: Jesus. Give this guy his eyes back and he can speak now. This amazing act of mercy.
07:30: And their response, because of their hard hearts, is to say, what? Oh, I know why.
07:36: Here's what you don't understand. Jesus, this guy Jesus, he's working with the devil. He's bedfellows with Satan and that's why he can do this amazing thing.
07:45: This goes beyond a mere trapping Jesus in a question. And this goes to a defiant hardness of heart and a resistance of the spirit of God and his work, his obvious work in the world.
07:59: And so they say, well, it's because he's working with Satan. He's working with the devil. So Jesus destroys their argument.
08:05: He says, how can Satan cast out Satan? A kingdom divided against itself can't stand.
08:11: And so Jesus gives them the if then. He gives them a logical syllogism. He says, if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
08:23: It's a present reality. It's arrived in history. If I'm doing it by God's spirit, then God's kingdom has arrived in history, guys.
08:30: And of course, we all have to answer the question. Let's do it. Ready? Did Jesus cast out demons by the spirit of God? Yes. And that means then the kingdom of God arrived in the first century.
08:41: It was a present reality then, not kind of, it was for real. Actually in their midst.
08:48: Actually among them. The Messiah was beginning to rule, to institute his rule in the world.
08:55: And so the context here is that they are accusing Jesus of working for or with Satan himself.
09:04: And so Jesus says, look at the words, it's in verse 31. Jesus says, therefore I tell you every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven.
09:18: Hard words. And let me say this, can I say, especially hard words for the modern evangelical.
09:24: Why? Because God's a God of love, bro. God's a God of love, bro. God doesn't condemn.
09:30: God doesn't judge. God is a God of love, bro. And he will forgive every sin, no matter what.
09:35: Now here's what, it is true, 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from some unrighteousness, no, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
09:51: Does the blood of Jesus cover all sins? Yes, except blasphemy of the
09:57: Holy Spirit. It's in the text. You can't avoid it. It's in the text. There is a sin called blasphemy of the
10:05: Holy Spirit that these religious leaders engaged in that Jesus says is the unforgivable sin.
10:11: If you commit this sin, if you engage in this sin, if you do this thing, you will not be forgiven.
10:17: It is an eternal sin, Jesus says. And you have to do business with the text. You can't just say it's not there.
10:23: You can't avoid it. You have to say it's in the text. What is it teaching? Now let's talk for a moment now about what blasphemy is.
10:31: It's the Greek word blasphema. You memorized it already. Now you guys all know some Greek, right?
10:37: Blasphemy, it's simple. In Greek, it's blasphema. Now the word in the
10:42: Greek is essentially synonymous with slander, railing, vituperation, railing at God, screaming at God, slandering
10:53: God. That's what blasphemy is. It's slander against God. So just remember that easiest way.
10:59: Blasphemy is slandering God. It's taking what ought to be glorified.
11:06: It's taking what ought to be exalted and lifted up, God's name, God's reputation, God's acts,
11:12: God's character, and it's throwing it into the mud and slandering God, railing against God.
11:17: So we talk about blasphemy, right? One of the Ten Commandments, right? Don't use the
11:22: Lord your God's name in what? Vain. That's blasphemous, right? Taking God's name and throwing it into the mud, slandering
11:31: God, taking the honor of God and bringing it down, blasphemy. But in this case, listen, they actually are doing something different.
11:38: They're not using God's name in vain. They're not saying GD. They're not saying something like that. They're actually pointing to something
11:44: Jesus is doing and they're saying, oh, what he's doing, he's doing because he's motivated by or working with the devil.
11:54: So they're saying that he has an unclean spirit, that Jesus is in fact possessed by Satan.
12:01: And Jesus calls that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, slandering the spirit of God and his work in the world to the degree that they said
12:13: Jesus is demonically possessed. He's working with Satan. And you got to see that that is in fact what the text says.
12:21: So blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Jesus was casting out demons by the spirit of God, 1228.
12:29: The text says, if it is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
12:35: First point. Next, these false teachers were attributing the work to Satan himself.
12:42: They said that he was working with Beelzebul, the prince of demons. Now I want you to see a text that goes with this because Mark gives more detail.
12:50: Okay, ready? He asks the question, what's blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? They were saying something with their mouth that exposed the condition of their hearts, where they were really at.
12:59: But what is really blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? They said he's working with the devil. So go to your text to Mark chapter three.
13:07: So just go over one gospel, Mark chapter three. And Mark gives a little more detail just by way of one verse.
13:17: Mark chapter three, starting in verse 18. Let's start there. Here's the text.
13:26: Sorry, 28. Mark chapter three, verse 28. Jesus says, truly
13:32: I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the
13:41: Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin. The way that Mark words the situation is actually a little more devastating, eternal sin.
13:53: But here's the text, verse 30. Look at the text. Verse 30 says, for, okay, there's the word.
14:00: So what is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? What is the eternal sin they were committing? Well, Mark answers it.
14:06: For, they were saying he has an unclean spirit.
14:11: So blasphemy of the Holy Spirit expresses itself in that they actually went to the point of accusing
14:21: Jesus of being demonically possessed himself. So what is this outward expression of the blasphemy of the
14:29: Holy Spirit? It's the accusation of the work and ministry of Jesus Christ as satanic, as demonic.
14:39: Now, I want you to see in terms of how does the Bible talk about what this looks like. If you look how
14:45: Stephen addressed the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter seven, verses 51 through 52.
14:51: Go there in your Bibles, Acts chapter seven, to the right, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts chapter seven.
15:04: Who was Stephen guys? He's the first recorded martyr, and he has this epic speech that he gives before the
15:12: Sanhedrin. I want you to see what he says to the Sanhedrin, verses 51 and 52.
15:19: He says, you stiff -necked people, uncircumcised in the heart and ears, you always resist the
15:27: Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?
15:35: And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, whom you have now betrayed and murdered.
15:43: You who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it. He's saying, look guys, you are demonstrating that you're children of your fathers.
15:52: Which of the prophets did your predecessors not persecute? And he says, you're stiff -necked, uncircumcised, not cut in covenant in your heart and your ears, and you're always resisting the
16:06: Holy Spirit. So there's an example, you have the leadership there being accused of resisting the
16:12: Spirit of God, and in the case of Matthew chapter 12, Matthew chapter 12, they saw the act of mercy of Jesus and they said, that's
16:22: Satan. And Jesus said, you can speak a word against me. Go ahead, say a word against me, it'll be forgiven.
16:30: Say something against me and my character. But if you resist the work of God, his salvific work in the world, to the degree that you accuse it of actually being demonic, then you obviously are committing blasphemy of the
16:45: Holy Spirit. This is an eternal sin. Why? Because they said he had an unclean spirit.
16:50: So, the basis of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a defiant resistance of Christ and his ministry to the degree that the accusation of demonic activity is made.
17:03: It is such a hardness and resistance that it leads to slandering the
17:09: Holy Spirit of God. So people have tried to say, what exactly is blasphemy of the
17:15: Holy Spirit? Is it just accusing Jesus of being demonic? Is that really what it is? I would say, well, it's kind of like when we talk about adultery, right?
17:25: Adultery begins where first? In the heart, right? But there's a physical act of adultery, right? So I can point to the physical act, but I know where it began.
17:34: There was something much deeper going on than simply the physical act of adultery because there actually is a heart issue behind it.
17:41: So we know blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is expressed in attributing the work and ministry of Jesus to demons, but blasphemy of the
17:49: Holy Spirit has something much deeper underneath it. It's a resistance to the salvific work of Jesus Christ in the world to the degree that, again, it expresses itself in calling
18:00: Jesus demonic. Now watch. Pause because I know what happens. I'm a pastor.
18:07: I know the conversations I've had. And some of you guys right now may be thinking this question, oh my goodness, have
18:14: I committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Have I done it? Have I committed the eternal sin?
18:20: And you get people who are very sensitive spiritually and they'll say things like, Pastor Jeff, I don't know if I've done it. I don't know if I've committed blasphemy of the
18:26: Holy Spirit. I don't know if I'm lost. I don't want to be lost. I don't want to have committed that sin. If you're thinking those thoughts, you have not committed the sin because, listen, blasphemy of the
18:38: Holy Spirit is a resistance to the salvific work of God. It's rejecting the work of the
18:45: Spirit of God in your life, in the world. Now, of course, it expressed itself here in calling the ministry of Jesus demonic.
18:53: But blasphemy of the Holy Spirit really is something much deeper. It's a resistance to the Spirit of God in His salvation.
19:00: And if you live that way, if you resist the Spirit of God and His work of salvation to that degree, that is a sin you'll never have washed because you refuse to be receptive to the work of the
19:12: Spirit of God in your life. And only a miracle could ever change that. But let me just say this again.
19:18: I want to highlight this because it's very important. People have said, Jeff, I've done that. I think
19:24: I've done that. I think I've committed that sin. I think I've railed against God. I think I've slandered
19:29: God's name. I think I've actually committed that sin and I'm grieving over it. I don't want to have committed that sin.
19:35: I want Jesus. Don't you know, brothers and sisters, the only way anybody could ever say they want Jesus, they want forgiveness, that they see
19:42: Jesus and they want Him is if God Himself is present. Because what does
19:48: Romans 1 say? What is the vivid definitional display of the judgment of God in anyone's life?
19:58: It's therefore God gave them over to do what? What was against nature?
20:05: Whatever their hearts desire. So listen, here's the point. Blasphemy of the
20:10: Holy Spirit is a deep, deep issue of resistance to the Spirit of God.
20:16: Again, to the degree that here you accuse Jesus of being demonic or working with Satan.
20:23: But have you committed it? If you grieve over this, if you hate the idea of ever having an eternity without Jesus, if a
20:33: Christless eternity feels like hell to you, then there is no way you have ever committed this sin.
20:42: So put it away from you. Put it down. Let it die. Blasphemy of the
20:48: Holy Spirit is a very, very deep issue of the resistance to the Holy Spirit of God and His work in the world.
20:54: And I do want to highlight for you this, 1 John 1, 9. What is the fundamental promise in Scripture?
21:00: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
21:09: If you fear a Christless eternity, then that is a display of the grace of God and mercy in your life.
21:18: But let me go to the inverse. Can I ask you this? The inverse? Watch. If you could think about heaven without Jesus, if you could think about heaven without Jesus and that sounds satisfying to you, if you could think of heaven in eternity, the future state, if you could think about it and you can do it in terms of really not minding very much if Jesus wasn't there, then
21:47: I would tell you that you don't know Jesus. You couldn't possibly know Jesus because I'll tell you what makes heaven heaven.
21:54: One day is it's Christ. It's eternity with Him. That's what heaven is.
22:00: Heaven isn't simply a place you go to, like turn right 350 ,000 miles past Saturn, take a left at,
22:09: I'm not going to say that planet, go to a different galaxy, right? You get the point, right?
22:15: It's not a place like heaven is. This is where it is on the map, right?
22:22: Heaven is more a person. It's God's presence. It's being with Him.
22:28: And so if you think about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and it terrifies you, then you are under the mercy and grace of God.
22:37: If you think about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and you think that's fine, I don't care, then you ought to fear for your soul.
22:46: I don't know its condition. I don't know where you're at. I don't know if you're the elect of God. I don't know where you're at in God's plan of salvation.
22:53: But if you can think about heaven one day without Jesus, then you ought to tremble in fear because He is the substance of life and the treasure to be pursued above all treasures.
23:05: And this statement from Jesus ought to have caused them to fall on their faces because He's the judge of all the earth.
23:14: And He's standing before them in the flesh, healing people, bringing His kingdom and offering the free gift of eternal life through faith in Him.
23:21: And they had the audacity to say, flippantly, even when they see a miracle, doesn't matter,
23:28: He's working with Satan. But I want to go to the next point. This is where we start to really unpack some tough things.
23:38: You know, when you prepare a message, when you prepare a message as a pastor, the first working over in the church is you.
23:48: You get worked over. I hope you guys pray for me when I do messages, and not just for yourselves but also for me.
23:58: You understand that I haven't mastered this book yet. You understand that I'm still a work in progress. And you understand when
24:04: I face these texts as a fellow believer and a shepherd that I first get worked over.
24:11: And I want to tell you that as I'm preparing and planning for this message and I'm reading this text, do you know the first thing
24:17: I'm thinking about? I'm not thinking about you. I'm not thinking about you as a church. I'm not.
24:23: The first thing I'm thinking about when I'm reading Matthew 12 and these hard verses, I'm thinking about myself and my own sin and my mouth and my heart and my depraved condition outside of Jesus.
24:35: So I want you to know that I have been worked over thoroughly by these verses, and I hope to God that you get worked over too.
24:44: Because listen, here's what happened. Watch. This is powerful. These leaders see the work of Jesus.
24:50: They didn't keep silent about it in their hearts. They actually made an accusation with their mouth. What was in their hearts, resistance to the spirit of God and his work, actually flowed like a river now out of their mouths, and you saw what was inside.
25:04: What was there came out, and they said, ah, Beelzebul, you're working with the prince of demons.
25:09: You're demonic. You have an unclean spirit. And Jesus says, that's blasphemy to the Holy Spirit, and that will never be forgiven, ever, because of what came out of their mouths.
25:20: And so Jesus says, either make the tree good and its fruit good, verse 33, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.
25:34: Now can we just say this, acknowledge it? Jesus loves the fruit metaphor. He loves it.
25:40: Jesus loves the fruit metaphor. It's actually all over Matthew. Not the first instance. Jesus uses this fruit metaphor actually a number of times, and it's not just Jesus.
25:51: It's in the Old Testament. It's also in the New Testament epistles. The apostle Paul actually refers to the fruit of the spirit.
25:59: Fruit is a common metaphor in the scriptures, and I think one of Jesus' favorite metaphors.
26:05: Let me give you another example. It's in the same text. Let's use the same book for now. Matthew chapter 12, he says, verse 33, either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.
26:17: Keep a finger there. Now turn to Matthew chapter 7. Go left. Matthew chapter 7,
26:22: Jesus gives the famous statement, verse 13, enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter it by it are many.
26:36: For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Man, where is that gospel?
26:44: Where is that gospel in the evangelical West today? Jesus is talking about bearing fruit and what you say, and this sin leading to death and condemnation, and he's talking about small gate, wide gate, narrow road, broad path, destruction and life.
27:02: And then he says, verse 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
27:11: You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistle?
27:17: So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.
27:28: Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, thus you recognize them by their fruits.
27:35: Okay, pause. Jesus makes a hard line.
27:45: He says, here it is, ready? This is the line, good tree, good fruit, bad tree, bad fruit.
27:52: If you're a bad tree, cut down, thrown into the fire, you're destroyed. How does that even work with the message that's kicked about today?
28:04: You have people saying things like, well, he's a carnal Christian. That's a carnal
28:10: Christian. What does that even mean? A fleshly Christian? How does that make any sense at all?
28:16: When the apostle Paul says, there's a fruit of the spirit and there are works of the flesh.
28:23: So Paul says, look, it works like this. You're either in the flesh or you are in the spirit, and you're either bearing fruit of the spirit or works of the flesh, showing that you'll never inherit the kingdom of God.
28:34: And Jesus says to false teachers, he says, you'll know them by their fruit, what they produce. If what they're producing is all bad fruit, then you know what kind of tree it is.
28:44: And if my life is identified by bad fruit, then what does it say about my tree?
28:52: And I have to come to terms with that because if I want Jesus, I truly want Jesus, I have to know whether or not
28:58: I've been made a good tree. And what we often try to do as people in the world, secularists, humanists do it all the time.
29:07: It's popular in therapy and counseling, right? It's very popular today. You have all kinds of self -help books and messages.
29:14: It's moralism, right? Someone has bad fruit in their life. They're producing bad stuff.
29:19: What do we do? We go to that tree and we say, bad fruit. Let's solve the problem. What do we do?
29:25: We pick off the bad fruit. We say, let's deal with these symptoms, right?
29:31: Let's take off the bad fruit. Let's remove the fruit from the tree. And then we look at this empty tree now and we go, ah,
29:37: I solved the problem. What do we know is true? Give it time.
29:44: And what's going to happen if you give it time? More bad fruit because the problem wasn't in the fruit.
29:50: It was always in the roots. It was at the bottom. And Jesus says, either make the tree good and it's fruit good or make the tree bad and it's fruit bad.
30:00: And Jesus in Matthew 7 talks to false teachers and he says, you'll know them by their fruits.
30:05: And now in Matthew 12, you have these false teachers accusing him of being in league with Satan and he says the same thing.
30:12: Bad tree. How do I know? Because what came out of your mouth right now was bad fruit.
30:18: And the only way that can occur is if something is wrong down there. And so Jesus 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.
30:33: I'll give you another one. Look, watch Matthew 12. Go there again. Just look over one page. Jesus gives another fruit metaphor again.
30:40: And this time, Matthew 13, it's one of my favorites. I love it. So I hope this is an encouragement to you, the parable of the sower and the seeds, right?
30:47: Jesus gives a parable of a sower sowing seeds on different kinds of ground. Now at first, they don't get it.
30:53: They don't understand it. What do you mean? Seeds go out, birds snatch it away, hard ground, only some produces fruit.
31:01: And Jesus explains it in Matthew 13, 18. Here it is. Follow me. Hear then the parable of the sower.
31:08: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.
31:16: This is what was sown along the path. As for what's sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.
31:24: Yet he has no root in himself but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.
31:34: As for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and proves unfruitful.
31:46: As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it.
31:52: He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another 60, in another 30.
31:59: What's the point? Jesus says, look, the gospel is going to go out. It's going to hit different kinds of ground, and you're going to run into these people.
32:08: I had an example a long time ago. I had a very close friend of mine, and I was trying to minister to him with the gospel.
32:16: We're having amazing conversations every day. He'd come to my karate school, this was a long time ago, and we would spar, and then after sparring, we would sit and I would talk about the gospel.
32:27: He would bring up challenges, I'd give him answers. He would go read stuff, we'd talk some more.
32:33: We'd go out to eat, I gave him the gospel. And one day, he comes into my karate school, this is like, goodness, 15 years ago,
32:40: I think, and he says, I'm there, I believe, I'm there. And I'm like, praising God, I'm like, praise
32:46: God, yes, you came to Jesus. Yeah, I believe in Jesus. Now, I'm like, yes, praise the Lord, it's awesome, this is so incredible, because this is somebody
32:54: I never thought, like, that they were going to turn to Christ like that. And then, it's like the next day, he came again, and I said, you want to come to church this weekend to worship?
33:03: Now when you tell somebody who's been made into a new tree, when their heart's been made alive, hey, do you want to come worship
33:11: God? Generally speaking, that person's like, yeah, I really want to worship
33:16: God, I long to be with God's people. I want to hear His voice. So, I asked him if he wanted to come to church, and he ended up telling me,
33:24: I can't come to church. I said, why not? He said, well, I told my wife, and after I told her what had happened to me, she started talking down to me, she started criticizing me, she started accusing me, she started getting really angry about this decision.
33:39: And he ended up saying, I don't think I can do this. I can't follow Jesus, because my wife's not on board.
33:45: And that's the example right there of the parable of the sower and the seeds, is somebody comes in with persecution, they look right now like alive.
33:52: I believe, and as soon as persecution arrives, no fruit. Now it's fall away. But the point is, is
33:58: Jesus displays over and over and over again, if you truly know God, if you're truly a good tree, then something happens inside you.
34:06: There's no way that you can cross paths with Jesus in a salvific way, and nothing happens.
34:15: It's not to say that Christians don't sin. Of course you sin, Jesus talks about that, Paul talks about that.
34:21: But if my life is identified by hostile resistance to God and His ways, and my life is identified by bad fruit, then it just shows the nature of the tree.
34:33: And if my life is a life of perpetual bad fruit, the problem isn't in my discipline, the problem isn't somehow in God's word, in Jesus, in the spirit of God, the problem is in the tree itself.
34:47: It identifies me. I can think about my past, when
34:53: I used to profess faith in Jesus, I had an experience with Jesus. I heard the gospel by Billy Graham on television, and I used to profess faith in Jesus, and you saw what looked like marks of good fruit in my life, and you also saw that I had two faces.
35:08: On the one hand, I was a professing believer, Jeff. On the other hand, when I wanted to do what I wanted to do, I did it.
35:14: When I wanted to go out and get high and use drugs, I did it. When I wanted to go and be in relationships with women that were inappropriate,
35:21: I did it. I was in Bible college living with my girlfriend.
35:27: In Bible college, living with my girlfriend, a life of perpetual bad fruit popped up, and it wasn't until I finally came to grips with this from Jesus, I finally began to look at the fact that Jesus says, something happens when you belong to me, something happens to your soul, something is real about this relationship, and if your life is marked by bad fruit, then the problem is not the symptoms, the problem is the root.
35:58: The tree is bad, and so Jesus confronts it, and he says, make the tree good and the fruit good, or tree bad and fruit bad, and he says, the tree is known by its fruit.
36:11: Something happens, regeneration takes place when someone knows Jesus. John chapter 3, what do we know?
36:17: Jesus talks to Nicodemus, he says, you must be what? Born again. You must be born from above.
36:23: You must be made alive. You must experience what Ezekiel 36 talks about, the sprinkling of clean water, the being indwelt by God's spirit, the hard heart removed by God, God's spirit indwelling you, causing you to observe his statutes.
36:40: You know, of course, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, I hope you know it, 2 Corinthians 5, 17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.
36:50: The old has passed away, behold, new things have come. If you're in Christ, you're a new creation.
36:59: You're made alive. You're made new. Born from above, changed inside, and of course,
37:05: Philippians, one of my favorite passages, it doesn't get quoted enough, Philippians chapter 1, verse 6, he that began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.
37:17: So God starts a work in your life, and he's not done with you.
37:22: He will complete it. So can I ask you a question? Apply it now, considering your tree, considering your fruit.
37:33: Since you've made a profession of faith in Jesus, what marks your life? What marks your life?
37:39: I'm not saying, is it perfect? Because God's not done with you. He will complete it.
37:44: It means there's a process there, right? There's a day of Christ Jesus, and God's completing what he did in you.
37:51: So can I ask you the question that I've had to ask myself over and over and over again? Examine yourself to see whether you be in the faith.
38:00: Since your profession of faith in Jesus, what's your tree look like? What's it look like?
38:07: Do you find yourself able to do the same things with no problem? Are there new things appearing on your tree?
38:14: Do you face things, trials? Do you face circumstances with the same kinds of responses?
38:22: Is there love and affection? Is there hope and is there patience? Is there a striving for those things, or is it the same bad fruits?
38:32: Maybe you're discouraged. You're saying, I'm still struggling with a lot of sins, Pastor Jeff, and I would say amen to that.
38:38: Good for the struggle. But I would say you shouldn't be focused in upon whether or not you have enough discipline and strength to finish this and follow through.
38:52: You should be asking the deeper question is what kind of tree am I? Am I new? Am I alive?
38:59: Is my life marked by different kinds of fruit than before, or does my tree look the same?
39:06: I've heard people say things like, I went soul winning. Woo! Pastor Jeff, let's go soul winning today, right?
39:12: People would tell me that in Bible college, say, let's go soul winning. And soul winning meant a very popular form of evangelism today.
39:20: You go knock on people's doors, hi, do you want to go to heaven one day? People are like, excuse me, it's seven in the morning, whatever do you mean, right?
39:28: Are you a Jehovah's Witness? Are you a Mormon? No, I'm from Faithful Baptist Church, right? I just gave it away, didn't
39:38: I? Say, do you want to go to heaven one day?
39:43: Because if you want to go to heaven one day, this is what you have to do, you have to pray this magic prayer, right? And then they walk away from the door after two minutes, the person prayed a magic prayer, they shut the door and they leave and they go, we won one soul today.
39:56: And you have people after going through this on buses in neighborhoods say, we won 16 people to the
40:03: Lord today. And we're like, fantastic, when are they coming to worship? How are you discipling them? What's going on?
40:08: And the answer is nothing. We just won a soul. You say, well, what happens if that person never shows any marks of the
40:17: Spirit of God in their life? What if they never show any marks of God working in them, striving for holiness, loving
40:23: God, worshiping God, loving neighbor? What happens? And they'll say, well, they believe in Jesus.
40:31: They said that prayer, they're saved, right? And the truth is,
40:37: Jesus teaches another way. He says, look, if it's real, if you're truly a good tree, then you bear good fruit.
40:44: Bad fruit means you're not even a good tree. You're known by your fruit.
40:52: And so dealing with bad fruit, we can't deal with it by merely removing the fruit. We have to actually deal with the root of the problem and say, what is the nature of the tree?
41:03: We have to be made into a new tree. Now notice just quickly, it was what they said that was the problem.
41:10: It's what they said. Matthew 12, 34, they said, he had a demon.
41:16: So Jesus says, you brood of vipers, how can you speak good when you are evil?
41:24: For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. He's saying this, you can't even say good things.
41:30: What you're saying is not good and you can't even say good things because you are in fact evil.
41:36: At the core, at the bottom, bad trees. And he says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
41:44: Now watch, this is a big one because you're going to see it all throughout the Bible. The heart, according to Jewish thought and biblical thought, the heart is the seat of the passions, right?
41:54: It's not this thing that's thumping along in my chest right now. It's not the fleshly thing that's bouncing around.
42:00: The heart is the seat of the passions. Everything's pouring out of it, right? You guys get that, the seat of the passions.
42:07: Another example of this being used in scripture is the example in Luke 18 of the
42:13: Pharisee and the tax collector, 9 through 14. Luke 18, 9 through 14, remember that? The Pharisee's like,
42:19: God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, right? He says, I pray,
42:25: I fast, I tithe, I'm not like this miserable old tax collector over here. And then it goes away to the tax collector who's the scum of society.
42:35: He is foul. He engages in extortion. He is the scum of the day.
42:41: And Jesus uses this huge difference, very diverse. Pharisee, super rigorous, and you got the tax collector that is the worst of all sinners of his day, the most hated.
42:53: He is the IRS of the first century, times 10 because of how he extorts people.
43:00: And what Jesus says is the tax collector won't even look up to God.
43:06: He won't even look up. He doesn't even feel like he's worthy to look to God and to even be talking to him. The Pharisee was like,
43:12: God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. Don't forget, the
43:17: Pharisee is always giving a pass to God's grace. He's not braggadocious saying, it's all me. He's saying,
43:23: God, I need your grace. I thank you, God, you're responsible for this beautiful thing you've done here.
43:29: Thank you. And the Pharisee is bragging to God and then the tax collector does what? It says what?
43:35: What does it say about his chest? It says that he's doing what? He's beating his chest.
43:41: Why would Jesus add that detail? Why would Jesus add the detail of this foul wretch beating his chest?
43:49: It gives the impression, because of their way of thinking of the heart, that this tax collector is trying to grab at and pull the place that is the source of all of his sin.
44:01: He is pounding at his chest, beating it. It's your fault. Jesus says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
44:15: Jeremiah 17 .9, you know the text. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
44:22: Who can know it? Some translations say, sick beyond cure. The heart is deceitful.
44:29: The heart, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. James, of course, talks in James chapter 1, verses 13 through 15.
44:37: Don't ever say what? When you're tempted, that God is tempting you. What does he say about our sin?
44:44: How does it happen? He says that what happens with sin is people are drawn away by their own lusts and passions.
44:52: The temptation is there. And the temptation meets a heart that loves it. And so he says what happens is temptation meets the lustful passion, the heart that wants it.
45:04: And he gives the analogy, essentially, of pregnancy. Sperm and egg.
45:09: They meet together. They conceive. And they give birth to sin. But the source is the heart.
45:16: This is where it's at, the seed of your passions and your life. Of course,
45:21: Jesus says in Matthew 5, 28, whoever has looked with lust at a woman has already committed adultery where?
45:31: In his heart. And so what Jesus says is out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
45:39: This is where it exists. I'm either a good tree that produces good fruit or I'm a bad tree that produces bad fruit.
45:46: And the source of it all is the seed of my passions. And so what comes out of my mouth, what spills out on the table, what comes out in my home, what comes out at my work, what comes out with my friends is a display of what exists here inside me.
46:07: And Jesus teaches here that what we say matters to God. They were saying that he was working with the devil. And Jesus is saying, what you say matters to God.
46:15: What you just said, what came out of your mouth, showed what was happening inside your heart. What we say matters to God.
46:23: I remember when I came to Christ, one of the first things
46:29: God took away was my foul mouth. Now maybe you guys couldn't imagine it today, but I was an artiste with my language.
46:40: I used to embarrass people in public with my mouth. I grew up in a home where you heard curse words all the time.
46:48: I could watch movies with all the curse words that I wanted. It wasn't a thing in my home that was really a problem.
46:54: If you wanted to express what was going on inside of you, you used foul language. And I had a very, very, very foul mouth.
47:02: And one of the things that God did in my life first was begin to deal with my mouth.
47:09: I used to try to say things that I could say before, and I couldn't get it out. It wasn't comfortable.
47:14: It didn't feel right. It didn't feel natural. Like it wasn't even my voice. And God began to cause me to grieve over my mouth, because what was coming out of it was really what was going on in my heart.
47:27: And it wasn't a matter of discipline and saying, just stop cursing, just stop swearing, just stop being foul.
47:33: It was a matter of grieving over the condition of my heart that those things would come out.
47:40: It's one of the first things that God deals with. Slander. Slandering a person and their reputation.
47:48: Why do we do that? Why would we slander another human being? Why would we say bad things about a woman in church or a friend?
48:00: It's a display of a condition of our heart. Watch. I'm only going to slander a person if I hate them in my heart.
48:07: I'm only going to slander a brother or sister in Christ if I have bitterness in my heart towards them.
48:14: So the slander, what came out of my mouth, was only a display of what was in my heart. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
48:23: Slander, gossip, backbiting, outbursts of wrath is only revealing what's actually in us.
48:34: What's another example of out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks? Happens a lot in marriage, doesn't it?
48:41: You ever heard the words passive aggressive? Yeah.
48:47: OK, don't yell out too loud, gentlemen, OK? Passive aggressive, right?
48:55: What's that? No, we're fine. We're fine. Sure. Right, yeah. Right? That was very passive aggressive, right?
49:01: Yeah, sure. The whole, mm -hmm, yeah, sure. Or when you say things with malice in a very sweet way.
49:11: Anybody know what that's like? Right? You're really, really angry and bitter. You're hostile towards somebody.
49:19: And what you do is you lace very hostile, malicious condition of your heart with very sweet, nice, passive aggressive words, right?
49:32: Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Our words reveal the condition of our hearts and therefore our souls.
49:40: Let me say that again. Our words reveal the condition of our hearts and therefore our souls.
49:47: We say things like, I didn't mean that, right? What's that mean?
49:53: It means that something came out of my mouth that I didn't really want you to hear. I didn't want you to know that I thought that.
50:00: I didn't want you to know that it existed in my life. And so we say often, I didn't mean that.
50:06: What we ought to say as Christians, when we say something hurtful, when we say something sinful, when we say something slanderous to anybody, what we ought to say is not,
50:16: I didn't mean that. Because the truth is, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
50:22: If it came out of my mouth, it's because I meant it. We ought to say, knowing the condition of our hearts is this, forgive me.
50:33: I meant that. It was sinful. It was wrong. I should have never done that.
50:39: Please forgive me for the awful thing that I said to you. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
50:49: We've talked before many times, right, about how the
50:54: Bible displays what comes out of our mouths, what comes out of our lives. If you have a glass of water, right, it's a glass of water, and you hit that glass of water, and water spills out onto the floor, and you ask the question, why is water on the floor?
51:10: Everybody says, because you hit the glass. But the way the question is asked is this way, why is water on the floor?
51:18: And the answer is, because water was in the glass. Wasn't milk. It wasn't iced tea.
51:25: It wasn't Coke. Water was in the glass, and that's why water's on the floor. And think about it in terms of being a
51:32: Christian in sanctification. If it comes out of my life, if it comes out in my home, if it comes out of my relationship with my wife and my kids, if it comes out in our relationships with each other, if it comes out of me, it's because it was what?
51:46: In me. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. I have to deal with my heart, my desires, what's inside.
51:55: Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And Jesus finally, quickly says in Matthew 15 11, it's not what goes into a man that defiles him.
52:08: It's what comes out of him. Jesus isn't concerned with the kind of food that you eat.
52:14: He's not concerned with what you put in your mouth. Jesus is concerned with what comes out of your mouth. And all of this is in the context of them saying publicly, he has a demon.
52:25: He's working with the devil. And so Jesus says, final verses, the good person out of his good treasure brings forth good.
52:37: And the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak.
52:46: For by your words, you'll be justified. And by your words, you'll be condemned. Brothers and sisters, this is where you have to ask
52:56: God to help. This is where we have to all ask God to examine our hearts. Jesus said,
53:05: I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak. In the modern,
53:13: Jesus would say, I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they type.
53:23: He reminds us that there will be a day of judgment. He reminds us that there is a final day where everything you say is either going to vindicate who you truly are, or it's going to condemn you.
53:40: Now, if you're in Christ today, if you've turned from sin to trust in Jesus, you have his perfect life and his perfect righteousness credited to your account as a gift.
53:48: Amen? Come on now, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, right?
53:56: No condemnation. Jesus says in John 5 24, truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my voice and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.
54:11: That's the promise of God. But Jesus says, with all of that, there is a final day of judgment, where the judge of all the earth, who always does right, will make everyone give an account for, listen, every careless word they speak.
54:31: And so he says that in the context of them blaspheming the Holy Spirit and saying that he has a demon.
54:38: And he says, that's bad fruit, and it shows that you are not a good tree. And it came out of your heart, because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
54:46: It spilled out, I saw it, it's in you. And he says, let me remind you, there's a day of judgment, where every careless word will be accounted for.
54:59: And he says, and by your words, you'll be justified. And by your words, you'll be condemned.
55:06: Here's what we don't face today. We just don't. We don't face it today. We don't face death. We don't face it at all. Do you know the great moments in history where there was massive revival and transformation in the world happened during times, many times, where there was great death everywhere?
55:23: Talking about times where there were bodies on the ground, where you could walk out of your house and see dead bodies, where there were wars, where there was tyranny, you would see great revival.
55:37: It's almost like when human beings face their own mortality, they start thinking on God.
55:47: They start facing the fact that they're going to actually stand before their creator one day. And Jesus reminds them, this careless word, that I'm working with the devil.
55:57: You'll give an account for that. It shows who you truly are. And he reminds us all there'll be a day of judgment where everything you say, every careless word, you'll give an account for.
56:08: And as a believer, it'll be giving an account as a saved person, as a child of God.
56:16: You might say, how did that work? Well, if you have kids, you know exactly what
56:21: I'm talking about. You have your home, and these are your kids, right? And they're your kids. And they're never not going to be your kids.
56:27: They're always going to be your kids, and you're always going to love them, amen? No matter what, you love them unconditionally. They belong to you.
56:33: They're in your home. But can I ask you a question? Do you still discipline them? Do you still correct them?
56:39: Do you still give them rewards? Do you still give them punishments? Welcome to the family of God, because that's the relationship we have with our father.
56:48: You're never not going to be his child. You're never going to be cast away. He'll never lose you or forsake you, but you will have a talking to.
56:59: You're going to have a day where you face God as a saved child, and it's going to be for reward or lack of reward.
57:08: Your father comes to you on that last day, and he shows you your life and your labor and your work in him.
57:15: And he blesses you as a child, not condemned. And then he also has you give an account for every careless word to brothers and sisters that that day ahead of us.
57:27: Can we just do this? This is the final thing. We'll end it here. I want you to see it, the display of it. What does it look like? Matthew 25.
57:33: Same text. Let's go there. I thought about doing this, but I think it's appropriate. Matthew 25.
57:42: This is powerful. What's it look like for believers? Matthew 25, verse 31.
57:48: Here it is. Jesus says about the final judgment. When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all his angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.
57:59: Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
58:08: And he'll place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my
58:18: Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and he gave me food.
58:25: I was thirsty, and he gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. I was naked, and you clothed me.
58:31: I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him saying,
58:39: Lord, when do we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? And when do we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you?
58:48: And when do we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me.
58:58: And then Jesus does the inverse, and he speaks to those who did not have fruit.
59:05: I want you to see the final words. Horrifying. Verse 45.
59:11: Then he will answer them saying, truly I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.
59:18: And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. And so Jesus teaches this, watch.
59:25: That on the day of judgment, saved people who are sheep, sheep, they belong to God, they're his, so never lose them.
59:35: Saved people will be vindicated on the last day by their good deeds.
59:41: Not saved, not justified, that already takes place when you believe. But there'll be a day where God shouts to the world, he shouts to the entire world before everybody, see, they were mine.
59:55: You see what they did? You see how they fed me, they clothed me, they gave me something to drink?
01:00:00: Do you see? Their good deeds vindicate them, they truly are children of God. It's almost a moment of bragging and trophy giving for God where he says, do you see what they did?
01:00:14: They did it for me. And then over here, those who don't, they didn't do it for me.
01:00:21: It shows who they truly are, the goats. And he says, depart from me. So on the last day, there'll be vindication that you truly did belong to God, why?
01:00:30: Because there was fruit. And Jesus says in Matthew 12, in light of their accusation, by your words, you'll be justified, by your words, you'll be condemned.
01:00:42: And that word justified, in the Greek, there's at least six different ways to use it. One, declared righteous, another, freed, another means vindicated, right, vindicated, proven to be right.
01:00:57: And Jesus says this to the false teachers, by your words, you're either gonna be vindicated or condemned.
01:01:05: You're either gonna be shown to be a bad tree or a good tree. By your words, you'll be vindicated.
01:01:12: So brothers and sisters, here's the question. How are your words? How are your words?
01:01:21: How do you speak to your wife? How do you speak to your husband?
01:01:27: How do you speak to your kids? How do you speak to your parents? Is it like a good tree?
01:01:36: Does it show what's truly inside you, what's inside your heart? How do you speak about one another in the body?
01:01:42: When your sister in Christ isn't around, and you're with this huddle of believers over here, what comes out of your mouth that shows the condition of your heart towards your sister?
01:01:55: When you're not with believers in the church, and you're with unbelievers, what's the abundance of your heart?
01:02:03: What comes out of your mouth? You ever notice that? You ever happen to you, like as you're growing in your faith, you're with a bunch of believers, and it's all worship and praise to God and love for God, and then you get with unbelievers, you hang out for a day or two, and all of a sudden, stuff starts pouring out of your mouth, you're like, where'd that come from?
01:02:20: Where'd it come from? Guess where it was? It was buried deep in there. It was there the whole time.
01:02:27: It was there. So what do you deal with? The heart. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
01:02:34: Your words are either gonna vindicate that you are a child of God, that you do belong to Jesus, or they're gonna display something else.
01:02:43: On the last day, there is vindication for children of God, that you truly did belong to Jesus, that you truly know him.
01:02:51: There's no possible way that I can come into contact with Jesus and not be changed. It's just no way.
01:02:58: And brothers and sisters, listen, if we don't actually start taking these things seriously and embracing them as believers, we never grow.
01:03:05: We're gonna be 65 -year -old, crotchety, gossipy, slandery
01:03:13: Christians. Wives, how do you speak to your husbands?
01:03:19: What comes out of your mouth towards your husbands? You might say, well, it's just how we've done it our whole lives.
01:03:27: Our marriage is basically, it's great, but I speak to him in this way, and he's just used to it now.
01:03:32: Yeah, he's used to it. But what's the nature of the speech? Because whatever is coming out of your mouth reveals the condition of your heart towards your husband.
01:03:41: And though you coat your language in soft and nice words, if they are, in fact, filled with malice, then it shows the condition of your heart.
01:03:54: Husbands, the way that you speak. Fathers, the ways that you speak to your wives and to your children.
01:04:02: Is it harsh? Is it harsh? Always. Is it accusatory?
01:04:09: Always. Is it mean -spirited? Is it constantly yelling? Is it always criticism?
01:04:18: Because, brothers and sisters, by your word you'll be justified, and by your word you'll be condemned. You are shown to be a faithful father and husband by what you say.
01:04:29: Yes, the words that come out of your mouth as a father and as a husband reveal the condition of your heart, and they show whether or not you're a faithful husband.
01:04:38: Yes, the actions matter. Yes, deeds matter. But, brothers and sisters, you can say, as a father and as a husband,
01:04:45: I show my love for my family in providing for them. I don't have to say nice things to them.
01:04:52: Brothers and sisters, by your word you'll be justified, by your word you'll be condemned. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
01:04:59: How do you speak to your children? Dads? Is it as a faithful, loving father?
01:05:06: Or do they know you only as a harsh man? Do they only know you as a mean -spirited father?
01:05:11: Do they only know you as a disciplinarian? Because most of the things you say to your kids are cutting, are mean -spirited, are full of discipline only.
01:05:26: Brothers and sisters, there is a day of vindication. My question to you is this, do you know him?
01:05:35: Do you know him? This is the joy of it all. The frightening thing about all this is it's a reminder that there's a day of judgment, a day where we all face
01:05:46: God, a day where we're vindicated or not. That's the frightening thing in the moment.
01:05:52: But the fear of that is exhausted and taken away if you know Jesus as Savior and as Lord.
01:05:59: And the question you have to come to grips with is this, have you truly been joined to Jesus and forgiven?
01:06:06: Are you a new tree? Are you a good tree? Are you made alive? This is the good news.
01:06:12: God became a man in Jesus Christ, and he lived righteously and blamelessly like you and I haven't.
01:06:19: And he died a death that you deserve and I deserve. And he conquered that death by rising from the dead.
01:06:27: And the call is this, repent and believe the good news. Come to Christ for life.
01:06:34: Turn from your sins to the living God for forgiveness and salvation. Come to Christ and live.
01:06:40: That's the call. And brothers and sisters, I just wanna say to you on a personal level that this particular section of scripture has brought me back to those moments where I came out of my addiction to Christ, right?
01:07:00: Where I really started to consider what's the true condition of my soul? What's the true condition of my heart before God?
01:07:08: Do I know him? And my hope is that God is doing that in you right now. And I do hope that as we reflect as a body, as a family of God here at Apologia, as we reflect on these words, that it changes us.
01:07:24: That when we come to Jesus face to face and he says to us, what comes out of your mouth matters, it's a reflection of your heart.
01:07:32: My hope is that it changes me as a dad, that it changes me as a husband, it changes me as a pastor, it changes me as a man of God.
01:07:40: My hope is that it changes wives, changes the way that we speak to our family, changes children, how we speak to our moms and dads, changes how we interact with each other as a church.
01:07:51: That rather than saying cutting and derogatory and mean -spirited things to one another or about one another, that we use our tongues to build up, that we use our tongues to encourage, that we use our tongues to lift people up, not take them down because what we say matters to God.
01:08:12: It's either gonna vindicate you before God that you truly are his or it'll condemn you.
01:08:19: Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Let's pray. Father, I pray you bless the message that went out today.
01:08:26: Use it for your glory, please. Please heal our marriages. Please heal us as mothers and fathers.
01:08:36: Heal us as children. Heal us as single people. Heal us with each other.
01:08:44: God, in this moment I pray, please work in the hearts of everyone within the sound of my voice.
01:08:51: Draw your sheep to yourself for your glory. Make us into good trees that bear good fruit for your glory.