Approved || Week 5

This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. Psalm 19:14

Tongue has the power of life and death. Proverbs 18:21

Like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, “I was only joking!” Proverbs 26:18-19

We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. James 3:3-5, 7-8

What is impossible
 for humans is possible for God!

How to TAME your tongue.

T –Think 
 before you  Speak.

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. James 1:19

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Philippians 4:8

A – Ask God to purify
 your heart.

You snakes—how can you say good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Matthew 12:34

The condition
 of your heart will be revealed by the content
 of your speech

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

M – Meditate on God’s Word. 

Garbage in
, Garbage out

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Joshua 1:8

Put God’s word in 
 now, so it will come out 
 when you need it.

E – Encounter God’s Presence.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Isaiah 6:1

Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5

Discussion Questions:

Think about a time when someone’s words deeply encouraged or discouraged you. What did they say, and why did it stick with you?

Psalm 19:14 asks that both our words and our thoughts be acceptable to God. Why do you think the writer includes both speech and meditation of the heart?

When do you most need a yellow light in your conversations?

What practical habits could help you fill your heart with God’s truth so that life-giving words come out naturally?

Thank you for listening to the Relate Community Church podcast! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today’s message spoke to you, share it with a friend or leave us a review to help spread the word. To learn more about Relate Community Church, visit us at www.relatecommunity.com. You are always welcome here, and remember—you are loved

Transcript

Welcome And Series Purpose

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. How many guys are excited to be at church today? It feels like we've already had church, but we got a little bit more to have. So, all right, I need this closer to me. I need this all the way. Beautiful. This will this will come in handy in just a little bit. This will come in handy. Man, I love the series that we are in, approved, because it means we are talking about what it looks like to be a church that pleases God. And ultimately we can't be a church that pleases God if we are not people that please God. If God doesn't look at my life and say, wow, I'm pleased with him, then we're we're not where we should be. And that this series is about getting in that place. Amen. How many of you want to be a person that pleases God? Amen. That's that's where we should be as the people of God. We should be living lives that are uh approved by him and certainly chasing that approval, looking for how can I please you, God, how can I serve you? Before we dive into week number five of the series, I want to take just a second and tell you how much it means to me that you're here today. I I say it every week, but literally, this is the joy of my life that I get to stand here in front of you. There was a time in my life where I would be scared to death to stand in front of a crowd of people, but but God, somehow He put me right here. And this is the last thing I wanted to do, he said, You're doing it. And so here I am, and it has just been a pleasure and a joy for Angela and I to serve alongside you guys and to give our lives to the cause and to to the ministry of what he wants to do right here in this city. And I love seeing all the lives changed and hearts touched and people making decisions to follow Jesus. That's the thing here, that we are gonna follow Jesus. And so, with that said, too, I'd also like to look at the camera and say that it means a lot to us that you've chosen to worship with us and to celebrate God's goodness with us today because he is good. Not because we are good, but because he is good. I'm gonna ask you to go ahead and pull your notes out. If you're online, I I never say this, but if you're online, you can pull up notes on the church app. And if you have to go on to the uh the church app and find us, that's how you can find the you can download the notes and all the I like the paper notes because you get to fill in the blanks and you get to write some other stuff alongside. Um, but you know, online notes are good too for those of you who like your tablets and your electronically inclined. Not I like paper. I like a paper Bible, and I like anyway. But we are a note-taking church, whatever your notes look like. And so we're gonna dive right into week number five of approved, and we are gonna we're gonna look at what it looks like for us to be approved by God. Listen, even when Jesus was in was on earth and he was doing his ministry in the four gospels, we see this story of Jesus going to be baptized by John the Baptist, and right after he's baptized, he comes out of the water, and this it's the the clouds open up, and God speaks from the Father, speaks from heaven and says, This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased. And right there in that one sentence, we see just God's, not just his love, because we all experience God's love. We all most of us understand that God. Question is do we understand that he can be pleased with us or displeased with us? And listen, I don't think if he's displeased with us, I don't think he's chasing us down with a hammer getting ready to smash you, so we better please him or else. No, this is we we want to please God. We want to we want our lives to please him. He loved us first, and we are we get to spend our lives. We get to spend, we have the pleasure of spending our lives trying to please him and serve him and honor him with everything we do. In Psalms, in Psalms, we see a picture. Uh in Psalms chapter 19, verse 14, David says something that is we're gonna focus on this week. He says, Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. Would you guys just read that out loud with me today? Let's start from the beginning of that, verse 14. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. I hope that is the cry of your heart as well as mine, because here's the here's the truth that God can look at us, God can see us, God can see the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart, and it could not be acceptable to him. But oh, that it would be acceptable to him. And so, just with that in mind, I want you to think about something for a second. So, studies show that the average male says about 7,000 words a day. Oh, okay. Y'all know, y'all already know where we're going with this. The average female has about 20,000 words per day. That's almost three times as many words. So some of you ladies have a lot more than 20,000. No, no, no, no. We're just gonna leave it right there. Here's the deal The ladies need to hear this message about three times more than the men do because you have that many more words. The average person, the average person across your lifetime says 160 million words in your lifetime. Now that seems like a lot, and that's a big number. And you think, well, what does that have to do with anything? Regardless of who says how many words per day and how much you need to hear this message, we all need to hear this message. Proverbs 18, 21 says that the tongue has the power of life and I think I may have to skip over to um another microphone because this one keeps losing me. And I want everybody online to hear every word. The tongue has the power of life and death. So with eight hundred and sixty million words in your lifetime, you know what?

SPEAKER_00 7:33

The the Bible says that Jesus said that there will be you will be held accountable for every word that comes out of your mouth. All eight hundred and sixty million of them. I'm skipping to this. My words matter.

Words Carry Life Or Death

When Jokes Become Flaming Arrows

The Tongue Is Untamable Without God

Think Before You Speak

Ask God To Purify Your Heart

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Right now they matter. For 860 million words on average for your lifetime, there will come a time where you are held responsible for those words. And whenever we whenever we have to be held to account, I want the Lord to say, acceptable. Not that every single one, and it's not a I need you to have, it's not me saying 51% of your words better better be better than the other 49%. I think we have to make it that our life matters enough, and the words of our mouth matter enough. And as David said, the words of my mouth, it's it's interesting, and we're not gonna spend a lot of time on this, but it's interesting that he points out two things the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart. I'm gonna show you in a minute how those two are connected, that we're gonna be held to account for those words. Why? Because they have power in them, that your words have power, and we've all experienced this probably many times. But how many times have you been just living your life, having a good day? Everything seems to be going good, and then all of a sudden, one person says something to you, and then it just sours the rest of the day. From that moment on, you're walking, you walk away and you think, Why did I have to meet the what how how dare they say that to me? How could they say that? Is it true? Am I really that way? Am I the way they think I am? And it makes us start questioning everything, and their words have the power to change that, and the exact opposite is true. We can be having the worst, most uh down day, and then all of a sudden one person comes in and then gives us an encouraging word, and we're and it changes everything. You know what? I do feel good. You know what? I feel that's amazing. I love her, I love him. I can't, you know what? I'm feeling good just because one person, and it also works with things that we read. It also works. I can get a text, I can get I got an email this week. The one email, it wasn't from any of you. I got one email, and I I thought we were doing very good. In fact, I'm praising God, yes, Lord, thank you, Jesus. And then I get this one email, and that one email kept coming back to me over and over and over. That this one thing that this person said in the email in the middle of the night, two o'clock in the morning. I'm laying there and I'm just thinking about these words. Words have the power of life. Think about it. Life and death. What does that look like? Words have the power to build up, they had they have the power to tear down, they have the power to heal, they have the power to wound, to bring peace. I can step into a situation where there's turmoil and trauma, and all of a sudden, just one prayer, one word of encouragement, one word of peace can just calm everything. Or it can start a war. You can start a war in your house, and you know what the words are to do it. You know the right button to push, can create courage or fear, unity or division. Last week we talked for two weeks ago we talked about unity and the power that how much God dislikes division, and yet what brings division? It's not it's not um disagreement that brings division because we can disagree, it's the words that are in the middle, it's the the buttons that we push that create division. Hope can be brought in. We can build each other up in hope or the exact opposite fear and despair. Faith. Faith comes by what hearing the word of God. Words are so powerful. Words lift us up or they tear us down, and they have the power of life and death. So our words have power. Tell somebody sitting next to you, your words have power. Now tell them like you actually want them to believe it. No, your words have power. You gotta be careful, we have to be cautious and intentional. I want to read you Proverbs chapter 26, verse 18 and 19. This gives us um not just a statement about words, this gives us a very powerful image and an idea, like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death. Are y'all watching this? Are y'all seeing this? Like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, I was only joking. Just kidding. Some of you think just joking is permission to say whatever you want, whenever you want. This sounds like a meme. This sounds like something that we do every day. I was just joking. And we say something really ugly and we follow it up with I was just joking, but somewhere in there, there's some truth, and that truth can tear someone's life apart. In fact, when I when I read this verse, I was thinking just ignoring the connection to um the relation to the verse that talks about how the devil shoots fiery darts at us with lies. I don't know what the most dangerous weapon, this might a fiery dart may have been the most destructive weapon at the time, because a flaming arrow can cut can burn a city to the ground. But think about it this way. If the writer of this proverb is thinking about the destructive power of weapons and ammunition, and like I I don't know about you, but I've been around guns since I was young. I've been around firearms and outdoors, and uh I was taught very young about gun safety and about you don't point guns at people, and every gun is loaded, and even if you think you've checked it, and it like there are rules around guns. Whether you like guns or not, there there should we be extra why do why is it so important that we're so uh safety conscious around guns? Because people get hurt with guns, but because people are killed with guns, because even when we're as careful as we can, accidents happen, and yet with this dangerous weapon in my hand, I'm gonna be as careful as possible, make sure that it's always pointed in the right direction, not flag. Listen, but when our words are spoken, we're not careful at all. We just walk around like with. I think if I translate this verse in my own words, like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, I was only joking. This is like, listen, you are playing around with a loaded weapon. You're being careless with a loaded weapon, and you are burning people's houses to the ground. You're destroying things, and you're just saying, I'm just joking. Just playing around. And how much more how much more potent is this verse and that idea whenever we think back about the to those 860 million words that you're gonna be held accountable for and that I'm gonna be held accountable for. And that one day when we have to in Matthew 12, he says, give account for every word. I want to be approved, and so I think we should be careful, I think we should be cautious, I think we should be intentional and specific with our words. In James chapter 3, we've the whole chapter gives us direction and caution and gives us some very specific points about our tongue and about the power of the tongue and how it has life and death. It says we can make a large horse. In James chapter 3, verse 5, in verse 3, verse 3, he says, we can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. He's talking about how very small things can do very big things and control their. I know you guys know this verse. And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go. And even though the winds are strong, in the same way, and here's where we get to the tongue, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. People can tame all kinds of animals. You can tame animals, can tame birds, reptiles, and fish. But watch this: nobody, no one in the room, no one watching online, no one, no human, no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. Over and over and over, whether it's a a flaming arrow, a weapon, or whether it's uh a bit in a horse's mouth, or a rudder on a ship, or a deadly poison, over and over, the Bible gives us this warning and this challenge that your words have the power of life and death. And some of you will hear this message and you'll walk out of this room and nothing will change. And this verse, probably more than all the others, is a little bit depressing. What do you mean? No one can tame the tongue. You can't, I can't. That that's uh enough for me to pack it up and say, all right. Why even try? Here's the thing you can't tame it, but you have the power within reach to tame it. Write this down in your notes. What is impossible for humans is possible for God. Your tongue. The power to not just tame your tongue, but the top the power to please God. This is not a matter of, oh, I gotta try harder. We talked a lot about this last week. It's not just about trying harder, it's about moving ourselves into a position where he empowers us. So, for the rest of the message, I want to give you how do we tame the tongue? And so we're gonna use uh the acronym TAME, T A M E, and in your notes, you'll have those uh, you'll be able to fill in the blanks. How do we tame our tongue? If we want to please God, we want for God to approve of our language and our words and what comes out of our mouths. Here's what we have to do. And this seems really simple, but I'm gonna show you that there's a really profound truth in the first one, and it starts with T, and that is that you need to think before you speak. Some of you just elbowed your neighbor and said, I told you. You just think about what you say first. So this is about the the the process of of thinking about our words is really a calculation. And I want to give you this verse in James. I told you Jane James is full of just such powerful wisdom as it relates to how we talk, how we live, the um the practical aspect of our faith. Watch this in verse 19, James 1 19. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Now, on the surface of this verse, it feels like it feels like this is just like another proverb. This feels just like a wise saying, but it's not just a wise saying. In fact, I would I would propose that this is more of a progression. This is more of a process that goes on, and so we're gonna we're gonna dig into this thought process that happens right here. Watch this. There is a a track, there is a um a process that leads down this track of quick to listen, and then the second part slow to speak, and it's almost like the third one is and if you get to the third step and slow to become angry, but if we can slow down the process enough, most of us have no process, we just comes out. Most of us are driven by our emotions and then boom, right to anger. Or we have like the buttons I was talking about earlier. If somebody pushes this button, here comes my anger. Well, hold on, slow down. What's the di whatever it says, right that very first step quick to listen. I think we're it it's not just uh a wise saying, and I think there's a difference between listening, and this is seems cliche, but there's a difference between listening and hearing. Because if I just hear things and oh, that's my button, how dare they? That give if you push this button, then I have a right to be angry. Wait a second. Quick to listen. Listen, what's the difference between listening and hearing? Okay. Lots of I'm hearing different answers. That there's a difference between listening and hearing, and I think s the simple difference is that there's a thought process that goes along with listening. If I hear it, it's just in one ear, out the other. Ah, that pushes my buttons, my anger's up. Or it could it could be any other emotion. Sometimes you have a button that doesn't take you to anger. Sometimes you have a button that takes you takes you to anxious. You have a button that takes you to worry. You have a button that takes you to just emotional. And I need to go sit in my room. And you don't have a way to process the emotion. So let's back it up just a little bit and be quick to listen and attach what comes into our ears with our thought process and put some thoughts with it. Put some processing power with it. We all have a uh we all have that friend that will just egg us on the moment we have uh you go and tell them what your other friend said or what somebody else said to you because they're gonna back you up with the the kind of hype man that you want, right? They're gonna I can't believe they said that to you. How dare they said that to you? They can't treat you that way, and all of a sudden we're that's that's not the thought, that's not the thoughts that we should be connecting to the quick to listen. Some of us have that inner hype man. Or we just say whatever we think. The point is that we have to start thinking about what we think. We need to start having a process or like slowing down. Why do we need to slow down? Because there's a process, there's a there's some there's some putting God's word with what we hear. So I I want to present it to you in just a visual way, and that visual way is this that some some of us we have this this process where we have a um we hear something, we have a thought in our the Bible says what we think in our heart. There's this there's some stuff going on in here, and then it just comes right out of our mouth, and there's there's there are no it's all green lights from heart to mouth. So I have a picture of some green lights. This is a picture of some of us on the inside. We just boom, it's all green lights. Whatever we think is coming out. We feel something, boom, it's coming out. I'm gonna everybody needs to know how I feel. Everybody needs to know what I think. Everybody, you need to, you deserve to hear this. It's all green lights. So here's what I'm challenging you to do. I'm challenging you to put just a yellow light in there. Slow down. Quick to listen, slow to speak. So all the the the listening, the processing, the thinking of meditating on God's word, that should be that should be happening inside, but then we should be very slow for it to come out of our mouth. Where's my yellow light? That's yellow. Should be, that's the yellow light. We skipped the yellow light. So wisdom puts a traffic light. Wisdom puts a slow, yellow caution. Think about it, process this. Let's I think that's what James is saying. Slow down. You don't have to be the first one to say something. You don't have to be the first one to fire off an email. I appreciate all of you helping, but I can't tell you how often somebody says, oh, the church needs to respond to this on social media. And they need to do it now. They need to do it first. And my my response is look, whether we respond now or in six hours, we'll be fine. We don't have to respond right now. Let's pray about it, let's think about it. What if you know what we should have a delay on social media from the time that you think about it and write it till it gets posted. If we had a delay on it, if you had a delay on your mouth, if you could just delay what you wanted to say, there's a bunch of those things that you'd probably say, uh, let me get back in there before it posts. I'll go before it comes out of my mouth. I'm gonna go ahead and cancel that. Here's what happens that this practice of slowing down, it also prevents it not only prevents you from getting to anger, it prevents you from allowing emotions to drive you. It prevents you from allowing yourself to be pushed into all the other emotions that can that can drive us and carry us. So what's the alternative? Philippians chapter 4, 8 says, and now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing: fix your thoughts or meditate on. You know, we don't talk a lot about meditation. We think of meditation as like, oh, that's what Buddha does, or that's what some Confucius or some other, that's another religion. No, he says, fix your thoughts, that's meditate on meditation. David said, I want to meditate on your word day and night. Fix your thoughts on what these things true, what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely, and what else? Admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. All of those should be the filter when we slow down, when my thoughts are churning, and I'm just thinking about what I'm about to give them, and I'm about to give them a piece of my mind. Don't let's put a filter on it. Let's meditate on what is true, what is honorable, and what is right. So we're gonna think about it. And I know that seems overly simplified, but let's just think. Number two is A, because we're spelling out tame, we're taming our tongue. We started with T. Here's A. Ask God to purify your heart. Ask God to purify your heart, and this is why I told you I was gonna connect your heart and your mouth, and Jesus does that in Matthew chapter 12, verse 34. He says, You snakes, or in another version, he says, you brood of vipers. I kind of like brood of vipers a little bit better. How can you say good things when you are evil? I remember last week we talked about how a uh a good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit, and you can't produce bad fruit and say you're a good tree because the the proof's in the fruit, right? This is that same idea that how can you say good things when you are evil? If you have if you have bad stuff going on in here, bad stuff's gonna come out, because watch this. He says, For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Or another version, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So the next time somebody says, I was only joking, there's there's something in your heart. We've all said those things, and listen, even in the middle of like, let's say we're going to war and we are arguing and we're fighting, or maybe Angela and I are having a disagreement, and one of us says something we don't really mean, and there's always those moments. I didn't mean that, I shouldn't have said that. But what it should be, I think, is it should be an indicator to something's going on in here. It doesn't mean that I meant what I said, it does mean, however, that my words are they're showing something going on in here. So I need to be thinking about God, purify my heart. If I don't, if if if the things that are coming out of my mouth are not true and honorable and admirable and worthy of praise, then I need to be considering, God, what purify my heart, make make this right. I don't think the words of your mouth, even though you'll give account for every w for every word, and by them, it says in in Matthew 12, by them, you will be acceptable or rejected.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

You will be judged innocent or guilty.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

I don't think that your words are the problem. So just because you say a certain thing, that or you say something ugly, or say something untrue, or say something hurtful or uh damaging, that doesn't mean that's the problem. The pro it's an it's like smoke coming out of a chimney. It's showing you what's on the inside. It's re it's it reveals what's happening on the inside. It gives us a an indicator, an indication of what's going on on the inside. So your words don't make you guilty, they're just an indicator. And some of us sitting here today just think if you think back about your own thoughts, this is this is so close to the fruit last week. We have to look at our fruit, we have to look at our listen to our words, and what are you know what our first instinct? Our first instinct is just to defend ourselves. Well, I I just talked that way, and I don't really, and I grew up that way, and that's how we talk, and it does. I don't really mean anything by it, and it's just like we can defend it, or we can say, God, what's going on in here? Watch this. The condition of your heart will be revealed by the content of your speech. You don't know you want to know what your heart looks like, and why does it matter what your heart looks like? The Bible says that God doesn't look at the outward parts of a man, but he looks at the heart. This goes right along with when Jesus talks about for where a man's treasure is, his heart or where his heart is, his treasure will be I put my valuables where my heart is. My mouth also reveals these different things that reveal what my heart is because God cares about your heart. He doesn't, I don't think he so much cares about your giving or what comes out of your mouth, but he cares about your heart. And renew a steadfast spirit within me. This I think comes from the same heart of this, comes from his same desire to please God. I want to be approved by you. I want you to, I want the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart to be acceptable to you, oh God.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Let's go to the third one.

Feed Your Heart Better Words

SPEAKER_01 34:08

This one. T A M. We're on M. Meditate on God's word. Meditate on God's word. Why? Why do we need to meditate on God's word? Here's why. Because I think a bunch of us, what are we meditating on? Netflix, probably. What did you watch last night or the night before, or all week? Oh, I gotta get home and finish Survivor. Survivor's not that bad, but it's not God's word. It's a bunch of garbage. It's just, it's it's I'm not I'm not saying it's evil, but what it is, is it's it's not true and honorable and admirable.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Y'all probably heard this like I did whenever I was younger.

Encounter God And Let Him Change You

SPEAKER_01 35:01

I used to hear this, I used to teach this to our teenagers that garbage in, garbage out. That's when I put garbage, when I when I'm consuming garbage all week long, it's you know what my heart's full of? Garbage. And then what we just read, what's in my heart comes out of my mouth, so now I've been consuming garbage, and here comes all the garbage out of my mouth. So why should I be meditating on God's word so that what comes out of my mouth is not garbage? So let's go to my table. I brought today, we're gonna make a smoothie. I'm gonna switch it back to this mic and hope it works. It feels like it's gonna work. All right, here's what we're gonna do. What happens, I think, um this is gonna be like my heart right here, and the stuff that I consume, what happens is we go and we think, oh, what what can I uh take into my life today? This is, I'm gonna get all the gossip first, and this is just dirt, and it smells bad because actually, I don't know what that was, but it can stay. It's fertilizer, so this has a really potent smell. But you know, I I'm getting all the gossip and I'm getting all the dirt. Also, I need some uh energy this week, so this is some uh great performance energy, so we're gonna put that right in. It's gonna taste delicious, I believe. Also, I've been doing some other things, reading some spicy books and some spicy websites. Yeah. Also, uh-huh. I know y'all know. This is uh sliced livers. All right. We need oh, too much. Got all of it, got all of it, and so all week long I've been watching bad stuff on TV and social media and listening to, and here we go. I just put it all in. All right, looks good. It smell it smells about like you would imagine it smells, it smells very bad. Um here's the problem. I'd like to come around so all of you could smell it, but we're not gonna do that. What happens is we are taking in all of this garbage all week long, and then what what do we do? We just walk around, babe. I love you, but here, I made you this. And we're offering this to all the people in our lives. Kids, come on, let's go. I mean, I've been, it's not that bad. I've been taking it in all week, and here comes all this garbage spewing out, and we try to dress it up, and it's not good. But this is what we're offering everybody that we encounter. This is what when we have conversations and we try to pray with people and we try to encourage people, what is actually coming out is I think I was a little bit uh mean to those people. I think, I think I that's not what I actually meant to say, but it just comes out because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so I've got garbage in, here comes garbage. And so I'm producing garbage because I've been consuming garbage. Watch this. Joshua 1.8 says, The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it what? Day and night. All I'm meditating on God's words, I'm keeping God's word, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For when you for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. He's showing the connection between what you're consuming and what you're meditating on and what's coming out of your heart and where your life is. On the flip side of this, we could do the opposite. We could take the good things, we can meditate on God's word, and hey, we'll start with this right here. This is whole H E B milk. This looks like a I've been taking in the milk of God's word and meditating on scriptures and his desires for me, and oh, some some fruit, the fruit of the spirit. I've been meditating on love and joy and peace and patience and kindness. Uh-oh, this is not open yet. And some Greek yogurt. This is good stuff. Protein, strong, make me strong. I need a scoop. Also, here's some more fruit. So we're gonna take a banana. We're gonna toss that in. I've been spending time with God's people this week. I've been in small group. I've been studying and uh doing my sermon studies. We don't want the peel. We're gonna put the lid on. It smells a lot better than the last one. It looks better. It could use some ice, maybe, but this one's a lot better. I can drink this one. Imagine the difference whenever we spend our lives, and this is what we're offering people. When I've been consuming God's word and meditating on God's word, and all of a sudden what's coming out of me is not because I've been thinking about, oh, I better say something good to them, or what should I say? No, it's when I get squeezed, when I'm in traffic, what comes out? Whenever I'm at work and things get tough and people are being ugly and people are being mean, this is coming out. Or the opposite is true, and I've been consuming the wrong things, and my heart is full of all this toxic stuff, this comes out. Because what I spend my time meditating on matters. Put God's word in now so that it will come out when you need it. You think about why do I need to meditate? Why do I need to memorize this scripture? It's so that whenever I need it, whenever I get pressed, whenever life pushes on me, then God's word comes out. And we'll close with this one, and it's E. So that we can tame our tongue, we're gonna encounter God's presence. Because we said this earlier that no man can tame the tongue. You can't, I can't. We don't have the power to do that. But what happens whenever we bring in the presence of God, when I lean and reach and spend time in God's presence and his Holy Spirit, it not only reveals, but he can heal my heart. He can take the play the parts of me that have been hurt by other people's words, and I don't have to spill that back out on everybody else. Watch this. In in Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1 in the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and exalted, seated on a throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple. I saw, I saw the Lord, and the one thing that his response, watch what his response is. He says, Woe to me, I cried, I am ruined, for I am a man of what? Unclean lips. Of all the things, he's standing before the Lord, and his train fills the temple, seated high and exalted on a throne, and the one thing that it that be that he becomes aware of is woe to me. I am a man of unclean lips, and then he says, and my eyes have he says, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. Watch, when you get in the presence of God, he can purify not just your heart, he can heal, he can make the change that we can't make, he can help us to tame our tongue, he can he can bring righteousness and purity to something that even though even though I may have been doing all the wrong things for so long, but he shows us where we can do better. The Holy Spirit exposes our our issues to us, not in a way that would shame us and bring guilt, but what he does is he says, I can I have more for you, I have better for you, I have a better life for you, I have a better, I have better thoughts for you, I have better. Better words for you to live by. He empowers us to overcome. I have experiences. I can think back in my life whenever I didn't have direction. I didn't know where I was going, but there were people who spoke to me and said, God has more for you. God wants to take you somewhere. And began to speak to me like my life mattered. And so I hope that you can hear me speaking to you today. People tend to become the most, people tend to become what the most important people in their life say they can become. Your words have the power to lead someone toward life or toward death. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we can bring life into this world. We talk about being life-giving, speaking life into people. I want us to be that church. I want you to be that person who can stand acceptable before the Lord. So I want us to close in prayer. Would you stand on your feet and let's acknowledge who we are in Him? Let's acknowledge that we have not always been what we should be. But we can do better. And we're going to reach for the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit to be transformed from the inside out. We're going to slow down. We're going to tame our tongues. So would you just right now, as I pray, I want you to reach for the power of the Holy Spirit, just reach for the Holy Spirit to transform you. We're going to believe that He can do that in our hearts and in our mouths. And then we're going to worship for a moment. Father, we thank you that you gave us a mediator, that you gave us some the Holy Spirit your Spirit, God, to direct us and lead us and to direct us and coach us through life. Coach us in our thoughts and how can we be pleasing to you? God, let our mouth be pleasing, let our words be pleasing. Let us lift up people around us. Let us be people who change the atmosphere around us into a life-giving way. In Jesus' name, we love you and we honor you. Amen. Let's worship.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

God, we did for it. God, we believe.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

God, we believe for it. We don't have the power to be anything more than we are until we have the Spirit of God in us. Until we have His life living and breathing and moving in us. Today, I don't want you to leave if you've never surrendered your life to Him. If you've never invited Him to be your Lord and your Savior, and said, God, my life belongs to you, and I'm going to follow you as long as I live. That's what surrender looks like. And everything changes when we do that because His Spirit breathes life into us. The Bible says that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And so today, if you've never said that prayer, if you've never made that confession of faith and that decision, I would invite you to do it with me today. Would you say these words out loud with me? God, today I give you my life. I choose to follow you. I give you my heart. I give you my thoughts. I give you every part of me. So lead me and guide me, and I will follow. Forgive me of my sin and make me new. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Put your hands together for everybody who said that prayer. I love that we got to do this today, and I'm looking forward to this week and all that God has for us. God bless you guys. You are dismissed in Jesus' name.