Mouth Management

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:00
Over the next few weeks, Brother Andy is going to be doing the majority of teaching on Wednesday night because I'm going to be out next week for the camp.
00:17
I'm preaching at Camp Sunlight next week.
00:20
And then the week after that I have my surgery scheduled.
00:24
And depending on my quickness of recovery, I may be back the third Wednesday or maybe not.
00:30
But basically what he and I have discussed is we're not going to try to follow the chapters of Proverbs because he's already prepared ahead and I've already prepared some things.
00:40
And so we're just going to preach on the text that we chose.
00:43
And since Proverbs doesn't necessarily hold to a strict chronology, it's okay.
00:49
So what I'm going to do tonight is I'm going to look at Proverbs 13 and verse 3.
00:57
And when I come back, I'm going to look at verse 24.
00:59
The title of that message is Shall We Spank? So you can all get ready for that one, especially all the kids.
01:08
Because verse 24 talks about sparing the rod and hating your children and those things.
01:14
But I'm going to wait until I get back to do that one.
01:19
So tonight we're going to be looking at Proverbs 13, verse 3.
01:23
So if you have your Bibles open, we're going to read verse 3 and then we're going to immediately go to James chapter 3.
01:32
Because, and many of you probably know this, but in case you don't, the book of James sort of functions in the New Testament as a parallel to Proverbs because James gives us functional wisdom for the Christian life, much like the book of Proverbs gives functional wisdom for the people of Israel.
01:52
And so James is sort of the closest thing to a book of wisdom in the New Testament that we have.
01:57
And there is a parallel passage to what we're going to look at tonight that I think further expands what Solomon is giving us here in the Proverbs.
02:07
So we're going to look at Proverbs 13, 3, and then we're going to jump immediately to James chapter 3.
02:14
So it says in Proverbs chapter 13, Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life.
02:24
He who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
02:31
Now let us turn our attention to the letter of James in the New Testament.
02:40
And in James chapter 3, we read these words.
02:46
We're going to read down to verse 12.
02:50
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
02:58
For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.
03:08
For if we put bits into the mouths of horses so they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.
03:14
Look at the ships also, though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.
03:25
So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
03:29
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
03:37
The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.
03:46
For every kind of beast and bird and reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue.
03:56
It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
04:01
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
04:08
From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.
04:10
My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
04:14
Does a spring pour forth from the same opening, both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
04:30
Father in heaven, I pray now that as we seek to understand your word, that you would keep me from error.
04:37
For Lord God, you know that I am fallible and able to preach error and don't want to, and for the sake of your name and for my conscience and for the sake of your people, I pray that you would make this word that comes forth from my mouth, Lord, sanctified and true.
04:55
And Lord, I pray that you would open the hearts of your people to hear it, that it would be mixed with faith, and Lord, that it would grow us all into closer conformity to the Lord Jesus Christ.
05:05
And it is in his name we pray.
05:09
Amen.
05:19
Throughout the scriptures, and really it is almost the whole Bible, there is a consistent testimony as to how important and how dangerous our words can be.
05:36
Proverbs focuses on many of its verses on a subject that I call, and this is the title of tonight's message, mouth management.
05:49
We just read in Proverbs 13, 3, whoever guards his mouth preserves his life.
05:55
He who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
05:58
And that's not just talking about how we open and shut our mouths, but it's talking about the very words that come out of our mouths.
06:07
We see later in chapter 21, verse 23, whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble.
06:17
Isn't that the case? How many times do you remember being a child in school, and it was your mouth that got you in trouble? Maybe you were a better child than me, but I remember almost every time I got in trouble, it was because it was the words that were coming out of my mouth that got me into trouble.
06:39
Proverbs 10, which we've already been through, but again reminding, it says, when words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.
06:56
And this one, I think, has been misused by many a false teacher, but I want to point it out, and that is Proverbs 18, verse 21, which says that death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
07:14
Now oftentimes you will hear that used by the health and wealth gurus, or the word of faith people who will say, see here you have the power in your words to give life or to give death, and therefore they would say that if your child is sick, you shouldn't say they're sick because you're disagreeing with the devil that your child is sick.
07:35
And what you end up with in that kind of, let me tell you something, let me just say this about that.
07:40
What you end up with, that kind of thinking, is you end up with more of a Christian science idea than a Christian idea.
07:48
If you don't know what Christian science is, it was produced and thought of by Mary Baker Eddy, and it was the idea that all of the metaphysical world is simply, or the physical world is not real, and the only thing that's real is the metaphysical, and therefore if you're hurting, you shouldn't say you're hurting because you're giving in to that idea, or if you're sick, you shouldn't say you're sick.
08:07
And I've heard people say that.
08:08
I'll say, oh man, I'm sick today.
08:09
They say, don't you, don't you prophesy that over yourself, pastor.
08:12
I didn't prophesy nothing.
08:14
I said I was hurting.
08:16
I'm not a prophet nor the son of a prophet.
08:20
And I don't have the power to speak anything into existence because I'm not God.
08:26
And that is an important truth.
08:30
Several years ago, we had a young lady who was sick, and we were doing a fundraiser to raise money, and I stood out, and I prayed for her, and I prayed to God to heal her during the fundraiser.
08:49
A man walked up to me afterwards, and he rebuked me.
08:55
He said, don't say God heal her.
09:01
God talked to me already, and God told me she was healed.
09:04
Therefore, you must agree that she's healed.
09:11
And don't you ever again pray that she be healed.
09:13
You agree with me that she has been healed.
09:24
The story is tragic.
09:28
The young lady did die.
09:30
And that man, God didn't tell him that she was healed.
09:38
And God didn't make her worse because of what I prayed.
09:43
So I only say that because this passage which says life and death are in the power of the tongue is true.
09:52
The Bible is true, but it's not saying that we have the power to create life or death with our tongues.
09:58
What we do have the power to do, though, is we do have the power to build up and tear down with what we say.
10:06
We can speak life into someone, or we can speak death into someone by how we treat them.
10:11
And if you don't think that that's true, look at children who are abused.
10:17
Whose parents tell them every day that they're trash and they're garbage and they're not worth anything.
10:23
Those children grow up often believing that they're not worth anything.
10:28
But then someone comes along and tells them that they're valuable.
10:32
That they mean something.
10:34
That their life matters.
10:37
And you see life in that child again.
10:40
Because the words do have the power to tear down and give death.
10:44
And they do have the power to build up and give life, right? So there is truth in this.
10:49
It's just not some kind of...
10:51
You're not a magician.
10:54
You're not one of the prophets of Baal.
11:00
And they couldn't do it either.
11:04
Remember when they were calling down Baal? They couldn't get him to do anything either.
11:09
So I kind of went off on that for a minute.
11:12
But the point is our words do matter.
11:17
But not in the way that the health and wealth gurus would say.
11:20
So that's the distinction I want to make.
11:22
I say this a lot.
11:23
Words are like dynamite.
11:27
Because dynamite is useful when it's used properly.
11:32
But it is devastating when it's used improperly.
11:37
They can use dynamite to blast a cavern and create a coal mine.
11:41
And draw from that riches of energy and all kinds of things.
11:45
They can use dynamite to drop a building and erect a new building.
11:50
There's all kinds of things that can be done.
11:51
But dynamite can also be used to kill and destroy.
11:57
And your words have that power.
11:58
That's the point.
11:59
Your words are very powerful.
12:00
And that's what the writer of Proverbs is telling us.
12:04
And what he says in that where he says, Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
12:07
And those who love it will eat its fruit.
12:10
What he's saying is you are going to live with the consequences of your words.
12:16
Those who love it will eat its fruit.
12:18
Those who live by that word will live with the consequences of those words.
12:23
I want to tell you something real quick.
12:26
Since we know we often face times of grief, even as now.
12:35
What we say in these moments can be very powerful.
12:43
And oftentimes the best thing to say is nothing.
12:48
Often we think it's the right thing to say.
12:50
And it ain't the right thing to say.
12:51
I actually have given classes on what not to say when you go to hospitals.
12:58
Because having been working around sick and dying people for so long and growing up in the funeral business, I've seen so many things that have been said that were the wrong thing.
13:12
So keep that in mind.
13:14
Just make that a practical lesson for the days ahead.
13:23
So when we look at the concept of the tongue and what we say and the words we use, it is clear that the Bible tells us that the tongue is an indicator of the heart's condition.
13:39
In fact, I would say this.
13:42
I think the tongue is one of the clearest indications of where someone is spiritually.
13:48
Because when you sit down and have a conversation with someone, if their mouth is full of bitterness and hatred and vile talk, and all they want to talk about are worldly things, and all they want to discuss are disgusting things, that tells you something about their heart, does it not? I'm very blessed to have men in my life that I can talk to about the word of God.
14:19
Brother Andy and Brother Mike that we just get to talk about.
14:23
And that's basically all we talk about.
14:25
Andy's a fisherman, Mike's a car guy, and I'm a computer nerd.
14:29
We don't really have a lot of things that we have in common, but we have Jesus in common.
14:36
And therefore we're never at a loss for something to talk about.
14:39
We're never at a loss for a common bond, right? Because Christ is the thing that we want to talk about the most.
14:49
And it hurts me sometimes when I get around Christians who don't want to talk about Jesus.
14:56
I'll give you a five minute time, a devotional pastor, then we're going to talk about everything else.
15:01
Really? Shouldn't the heart within us overflow out of our mouth with the love for our Savior? And I'm not saying that every time you get together you have to have a Bible study.
15:17
I like getting together with these young guys and we talk about all kinds of stuff, we talk about guns and stuff, and that's fun.
15:23
But there's a reason why we're connected.
15:25
And it ain't because we look alike, and it ain't because we're the same age, and it ain't because of those things.
15:29
It's because we love Christ.
15:32
And therefore that peppers our conversations.
15:38
And it creates that bond.
15:47
Very quickly, if you don't mind, just turn with me to Romans 3.
15:50
I want to show you something very important.
15:51
You can hold your place in James because we are going to go back there in just a moment.
15:54
But run over to Romans 3.
15:58
Because when Paul is describing the doctrine of sin, when Paul is describing man's condition, by the way, if you're unfamiliar with Romans, Romans 1 and 2, Paul is describing man's sinful condition.
16:15
And then in chapter 3, he brings it to a head where he says, this is why I've said this, because all are sinners.
16:22
Romans 3.23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
16:25
Well, right before that, he condemns Jew and Greek together in this line.
16:31
I want you to hear beginning at verse 10.
16:34
There is none righteous, no, not one.
16:38
There is none who understands.
16:41
There is none who seeks after God.
16:43
All have turned aside.
16:44
Together they have become worthless.
16:46
No one does good, not even one.
16:48
By the way, just stop right there.
16:49
This is Paul's assessment of all men.
16:53
None is good.
16:56
None are righteous in and of themselves.
16:59
And then he says this in verse 13.
17:03
Their throat is an open grave.
17:06
They use their tongues to deceive the venom of asps.
17:11
And that is a venomous snake.
17:12
The venom of snakes is under their lips.
17:16
Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
17:20
That's the picture of the natural man.
17:26
The picture of the natural man is a man whose heart is shown forth in his speech.
17:33
And the natural man, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, his speech is vile and wicked.
17:39
Even if he's the greatest orator in the world.
17:41
Even if he never says a curse word.
17:43
By the way, I'm not just talking about people who use those vile four-letter words.
17:48
They use words that tear people down.
17:50
They use words that are bitter and hurtful.
17:54
I know people that can hurt you just as bad with no curse words.
18:00
Because they'll tear you down with some other word.
18:03
And they'll think they're doing God's work.
18:05
Because they're really good at using some kind of sanctified language to tear other people down.
18:12
And they think they're doing right.
18:20
My favorite.
18:21
The whole Bible is my favorite.
18:23
I always say my favorite passage.
18:26
Among the 66 books is Isaiah 6.
18:32
You remember when Isaiah saw the Lord seated upon his throne, high and lifted up, train of his robe filled the temple.
18:37
Seraphim was flying around saying, holy, holy, holy.
18:40
The Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is filled with his glory.
18:42
Remember that.
18:44
What did Isaiah do? He covered his mouth.
18:51
He said he covered his mouth and he said, woe is me.
18:55
For I am undone.
19:00
I am a man of what? Unclean lips.
19:07
And I dwell among a people of unclean lips.
19:11
And my eyes have seen the king.
19:14
So even Isaiah in the old covenant recognized that what truly showed his heart before God was his mouth.
19:24
And do you remember what God did? He sent one of the seraphims to take a hot coal off of the altar.
19:30
And he took it with tongs so hot that even angelic hands couldn't grab it.
19:34
He took a tong and he picked up the hot coal and he touched it to his mouth.
19:38
And he seared his lips as a picture of his atonement.
19:45
As a picture of his need for forgiveness.
19:51
So we know the mouth is powerful.
19:56
And the mouth is a picture of the heart.
20:07
I previously in years past made the observation, especially when I teach young people and I do teach kids a lot, karate and Sunday school and stuff like that.
20:16
I always say God gives you two ears and only one mouth.
20:20
So listen twice as much as you talk.
20:22
You've all heard that.
20:23
Especially teachers like Bert.
20:24
You know you hear that.
20:24
God gives you two ears and one mouth.
20:27
But you think about it.
20:28
God gave you two ears, two hands, two feet, two nostrils.
20:32
He gave you two of everything almost.
20:35
But he knew this part was dangerous.
20:39
So we only get one of those.
20:42
It has the potential for so much good and so much bad.
20:50
And so we are called to manage our mouth.
20:56
So I don't know how far we're going to get.
20:59
My intention tonight was not to go a super long message with everything going on.
21:04
I didn't think that was needed.
21:05
But I do want to very quickly give you an outline of the James passage and walk through it.
21:11
And then hopefully you'll understand sort of where I was trying to go with this.
21:19
So in James chapter 3, verses 1 to 12, we have four points in the text.
21:26
I don't have a white board to write them down.
21:29
They all start with the letter I, so that may be helpful.
21:33
The first is the importance of the tongue.
21:36
That is verses 1 and 2.
21:38
The iniquity of the tongue.
21:40
That is verses 3 to 6.
21:42
The incorrigibility of the tongue.
21:45
Verses 7 and 8.
21:46
And I'll let you try to spell that.
21:49
It'll make sense when we get there.
21:51
And the inconsistency of the tongue, verses 9 to 12.
21:56
So let's look first at the importance of the tongue.
21:59
He says, Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
22:05
Now that may seem like it's out of context for what we're talking about because we're talking about the mouth.
22:10
But what is the teacher's main tool? His mouth.
22:15
So what we are reading in verses 1 to 12 is set with a context of James' first and foremost talking to people who speak God's word.
22:23
Who teach God's word.
22:25
And he's saying, Not everyone should be teachers because you are going to be judged with greater strictness.
22:31
I'm going to tell you something.
22:32
That verse many, many, many a times has that verse loomed over my head and in my heart.
22:41
Because it says, Those who do what I am doing right now are going to be judged for what we are doing.
22:50
And how we do it.
22:52
I do not understand for the life of me how a man can call himself a man of God and not take seriously the preaching of the word of God.
23:02
Guys who get in the pulpit and try to be stand-up comics or try to be actors or try to be anything but a preacher.
23:12
I don't get it.
23:14
And it's a dangerous thing.
23:18
It is a dangerous thing to flirt with judgment.
23:23
And that's what you're doing.
23:28
And then he goes on.
23:31
He says, For we all stumble in many ways.
23:35
And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man able to bridle his old body.
23:43
See, you have to understand what he's saying here.
23:44
He's saying, he's saying, by the way, I know some of you may object.
23:49
Well, nobody's perfect.
23:50
And he's not saying we're going to be perfect.
23:52
No, he's not.
23:53
But what he's saying is this.
23:54
He's saying, if you could control your mouth, you could control everything else.
23:57
And oftentimes we think different, right? Oftentimes we think it is the other things that we don't have control of, like young men and lust or things like that.
24:09
We say, that's the part that really drives a person.
24:12
But James says, no, it's the mouth.
24:15
Because, again, the mouth is the picture.
24:17
It's the vessel to the heart.
24:19
What's in the bucket or what's in the well comes up in the bucket, right? And what Jesus told us that, you know, out of the heart, the mouth speaks.
24:35
He compares, in verse 3, to a horse's bit.
24:38
He said, if we put bits in the mouths of horses, they obey us.
24:42
We guide their whole bodies.
24:45
Think about that.
24:45
A little old piece of metal, this big, goes in the mouth of a horse.
24:49
I don't know how heavy they are.
24:50
Pretty big.
24:51
Big old animal.
24:52
I was going to say 3,000 pounds.
24:53
Probably not 3,000 pounds.
24:54
But they're pretty heavy.
24:54
A little bit of metal controls a whole horse.
25:02
Two inches of mouth has you under control.
25:08
That's what he's saying.
25:10
You don't control it.
25:11
It controls you.
25:15
And he uses the same picture of a ship's rudder.
25:17
And, again, he's doing the comparison thing where he says, you've got a small bit and a big animal.
25:23
You've got a small rudder on a big ship.
25:25
Both of them are the ones that are turning it and controlling it.
25:31
The small member in our mouths, our tongue, has a great deal of control over our lives.
25:41
If you don't believe that, wait until the next time you have something really interesting that you have to tell somebody, but it's not yours to tell, or a story that sounds interesting, and you really want to share it, but it's not yours to share.
26:00
And that shows us who's really in control, right? Got to get on that phone.
26:04
Got to get on that Internet.
26:05
Got to get on that Facebook.
26:06
Got to let the world know that I know something that the world doesn't know.
26:11
And you know what they say, the lie will cross the ocean before the truth has its shoes on.
26:25
A sanctified person must learn to control his mouth.
26:28
This is what James is saying, mouth management, because this little member has so much control over us.
26:40
Then we get to verse 5, the iniquity of the tongue.
26:42
He says, so also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts great things.
26:45
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire, and the tongue is a fire.
26:52
It's a world of unrighteousness.
26:56
Set ablaze, excuse me, tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.
27:08
Now what does he mean when he says it's a world of unrighteousness? I have seven things here, I'm just going to go through them quickly.
27:15
Seven things that all are coming just out of the mouth.
27:18
Number one is gossip.
27:20
Number two is putting others down.
27:23
I don't have a better way of saying that.
27:25
You might say, well that's gossip.
27:27
No, gossip is saying it behind their back.
27:31
This is saying it to their face, but being just as awful.
27:34
And there are people who are just as awful to your face as they are behind your back, bragging.
27:42
You know the Bible actually talks about that.
27:45
It talks about pride and arrogance and putting ourselves first.
27:51
How do you know who's doing that? By the words, right? Look at me.
27:55
You ever been telling a story and somebody beside you say, oh I can top that? I'm not asking you to top that.
28:03
I'm not asking you to top that.
28:03
What are you doing? Why do you feel like you have to tell a better story? Why do you feel like you got to, I mean that may seem like a small thing, but again it's just pride.
28:11
Your story was good, but I can top that.
28:14
You climbed to the top of the tower.
28:16
I climbed to the top of the Sears tower.
28:18
Whatever.
28:18
It doesn't matter.
28:20
I got to make myself better.
28:22
I got to put myself on display.
28:27
Manipulation.
28:30
You ever met someone who was a master manipulator? Somebody who just knows how to con with their words.
28:44
You know what gaslighting is? I've only recently come to understand what that term means.
28:51
And if you're not familiar with it, I think it's relatively new within the pop psychology world.
28:58
But gaslighting is when you make someone think that they're crazy when you're mistreating them by making them think that it's not happening.
29:08
This happens a lot with abusers.
29:10
They will abuse someone and then they'll say, you're not really abused.
29:15
You're abusing me.
29:18
And they make them feel like they're out of their mind.
29:23
It's called gaslighting.
29:24
It's a term which simply means to make them think they're crazy when they're actually not.
29:34
You ever seen that happen? That's one of the ways that we use our mouths in a deadly way.
29:46
Here's one.
29:47
Complaining.
29:50
Now, there are times when we have to say something about something.
29:57
And I want you to know that in general, we have a very lovely group of people here.
30:02
And I mean that.
30:03
I go to meetings sometimes and I talk to other pastors and I leave wanting to wash my hands because it's like I've been playing in the dirt.
30:12
I've seen pastors who are mistreated.
30:14
Their people treat them like garbage.
30:16
And it hurts my soul.
30:18
I know.
30:20
And I'm thankful for this church.
30:24
I think that you guys are a loving group of people.
30:26
And I'm not trying to build you up in a false way.
30:30
I'm not gaslighting you.
30:32
I'm saying it for true.
30:33
You guys are very kind and I'm thankful.
30:38
So, generally, when somebody comes and tells me something, I don't see it as just like, oh, that's a complainer.
30:42
Okay, this is something we need to talk about.
30:44
But there are times, though, when we have had folks, it's just all they wanted to do is complain.
30:51
And it was like every time you see this person, it's something, it's something, it's something.
30:56
And I remember telling them one time, I said, there better be a suggestion box in heaven.
31:00
They said, why? I said, because you ain't going to be happy unless you can complain.
31:04
When you get there, you're going to have to feel like you can say something.
31:12
You know, the Bible calls them fault finders.
31:17
Malcontents.
31:21
Two more.
31:22
Lying, obviously.
31:25
And then probably the worst of all is false teaching.
31:28
And that's the context of James is the false teaching.
31:31
That's the world of unrighteousness.
31:33
That's the fire.
31:39
Now we get to verse seven and we see the incorrigibility of the tongue.
31:42
Incorrigible means untameable.
31:45
Like when you say a child, if there's a child that's acting up and you can't get him in line, he's incorrigible, right? You can't get him to do right.
31:56
Notice what it says.
31:57
It says, for every kind of beast and bird and reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed.
32:01
But no human being can tame the tongue.
32:04
It is a restless evil full of deadly poison.
32:06
It is like a child that you can't get a handle on.
32:11
But it's in you.
32:14
So James is saying your tongue is in you.
32:16
And yet, you know, you and what do you do? What do you do about people who don't you see people who their mouth runs off like verbal diarrhea? Excuse me, but that's.
32:28
And you say, oh, what a bad part.
32:30
But then you allow, you know, you do it.
32:36
Remember what Paul said in Romans two, he says, you condemn them, but you yourself do the same.
32:46
What's that called? What's the technical term for that hypocrisy? And we condemn others.
32:52
And yet we ourselves do the same.
32:58
Lastly, is the inconsistency of the tongue.
33:00
He says, with it, we bless our Lord and father.
33:02
And with it, we curse people made in the image of God.
33:06
And he says, how you can't get salt and fresh water out of the same spring.
33:10
But how do you get good words and bad words out of the same heart? The mouth shows us our heart.
33:26
And often it's when our mouth is in the position of, well, let me say it this way.
33:36
Often it's when we're with people or in a situation where we think we can get away with it that we show who we truly are.
33:43
This is why when a man comes and says, I feel like God has called me to the ministry.
33:47
I want to talk to your wife.
33:50
I want to know how you treat her because she sees you when nobody else does.
33:57
I want to talk to your children.
34:00
This is why I do think the Bible tells us that the elder is to be a man, a husband of one wife, and he's to manage his children well because that's one of the ways that you see if he's qualified.
34:14
If he's not loving his wife, if he's not ministering to his children and managing them well, if he's not that, you know, so we we have that conversation with the wife.
34:37
What's he like at home? The mouth shows the heart of a man.
34:49
You probably heard this before.
34:50
I'm going to draw to a close very quickly.
34:51
You've probably heard this before.
34:53
But I'm going to give it to you anyway, because there's there's there's a there's a very simple set of questions that you can ask yourself.
35:04
If you feel the need to say something and you don't quite know if you should say it, you were saying it.
35:15
Well, that's a little more fancy than what I was going to say, but it's three things.
35:20
Number one, is it true? Because if it ain't true, you ain't ought to say it anyway.
35:27
And if you don't know if it's true, then you probably shouldn't say it.
35:32
Keep that on Facebook.
35:36
A lot of people share stuff, only later find out, oh, that didn't happen.
35:41
Right.
35:43
So is it true? That's number one.
35:47
Number two, is it necessary? Just because something's true don't mean it's necessary.
36:00
Sometimes the only value in what you have to say is to tear someone else down.
36:05
And then that it's valueless.
36:08
The Bible says loved us.
36:10
Covers a multitude of sins.
36:13
And I do think that that applies to how we talk of one another.
36:17
Because if we love one another, we are not going to be tearing each other down in the minds of others.
36:25
I want to give you, you know I'm going to speak about somebody tonight in a good way.
36:31
No.
36:33
I want to talk about Jerry Gomez.
36:36
Because he's not in here, but I wish he was so he could hear this.
36:39
Jerry Gomez has been at this church now for two or three years.
36:42
I don't know if he's been here a while.
36:46
And I remember commenting to my wife about a year after we met.
36:51
You know, he plays the drums.
36:51
If you don't know who Jerry is, he's a beard, bald head, plays the drums.
36:54
I remember saying, I've never heard him say anything negative about anyone ever.
37:03
I can't even say that about me.
37:06
I'm so sad to say that I was so amazed that every time we were together, he never uttered a word of any type of negative about anyone.
37:19
And anytime something negative would come up about someone, he would somehow spin it into a positive.
37:28
Well, we need to pray for that person.
37:30
Or we need to give them grace.
37:31
Or we need to figure out a way to minister.
37:33
It was so, it was powerful.
37:37
So much so, like I said that, because he and I spent a lot of time together.
37:41
You know, we did music together.
37:42
We did all kinds of stuff together.
37:43
And I just remember, so, and many of you were that way.
37:48
So I'm just, I just remember specifically thinking that, you know, not saying unnecessary things.
37:56
That's number two.
37:58
And the last thing is what I'm saying kind.
38:04
So number one is, is it true? Is it necessary and is it kind? The Bible says the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.
38:19
Right? We think about kindness.
38:24
It doesn't always mean niceness.
38:27
Because niceness would mean I ain't going to say nothing ever.
38:31
I'm too nice.
38:33
Sometimes we have to say the hard thing.
38:35
Sometimes it is necessary to say the things that the person doesn't want to hear.
38:40
But we do that because it's kind to tell somebody the truth, even if they don't want to hear it.
38:47
It's God's kindness.
38:48
And we do it in love.
38:50
Right? So I hope tonight was very practical for you.
38:56
I hope tonight was a lesson that hopefully we can really dig our teeth into and apply immediately.
39:02
How do we manage our mouth to the glory of God? Let's pray.
39:11
Father, I thank you for this time in your word.
39:14
I pray that you would bless the hearing and the preaching of the word.
39:18
And I pray, Lord, that you would help us all to be better managers of our mouths.
39:23
In Jesus' name, amen.