“30 Days To Taming Your Tongue” – Message 1 of 6
Why Do People Need A Good Word From You?
Pastor Michael Johnson
Aug 29, 2010
INTRO:
The tongue is a small but very powerful member of our body. As you have heard me say before, to the doctor, the tongue is a 2 ounce slab of mucous membrane enclosing a complex array of muscles and nerves that enable the body to chew, taste, and swallow. To the mother, the tongue is a tool that enables her to softly sing her baby to sleep. To the father, the tongue is a tool that enables him to calm the fears of his son who has just seen a spider or just awakened from a nightmare. To the attorney, the tongue is a tool to be used in a courtroom to defend the truth. To the pastor, the tongue is a tool to be used to help encourage troubled hearts to find peace, love, and forgiveness in their relationships with Christ and with their fellow man.
Notice what James 3:8-10 says, “But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God, from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.”
James says no one can tame the tongue and we all know this to be true but we also know that through Jesus Christ, all things are possible. Today as I share this first message of 6 on Taming Your Tongue, I want to begin by helping you see the big picture of and answer the question, “why do people need a good word from you?” There are 4 reasons why people need a good word from you.
4 REASONS WHY PEOPLE NEED A GOOD WORD FROM YOU
The first reason is because their lives are broken and hurting.
I. BECAUSE THEIR LIVES ARE BROKEN AND HURTING
There is an old saying that I have always liked, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Many times we have set out to make something that is working, work a little better, only to end up breaking it where it won’t work at all.
Yet, when our lives and our hearts are broken, they need fixing.
The beauty of the Bible is seen in God’s overwhelming joy in salvaging our broken lives. Ultimately sin is to blame for all life’s brokenness. The beauty of the Bible is that God teaches us how to get on with a broken life and how to help others get on with a broken life. One of the key ways you help others with their broken lives is through hearing a good word from you.
It is never too late to find God’s healing for our brokenness. God desperately wants to work His work in each of our lives even if we believe it is too late. But God also wants to use your words as a part of that healing process.
Notice what Isaiah 50:4 says, “The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” Isaiah 50:4
The words that come out of your mouths are intended by God to refresh and help others. We live in a world that is filled with pain, violence, and trouble. We all experience various aspects of discouragement, despair, and depression. We all have experienced fatigue, failure, frustrations, and fears. We all have hidden hurts from our past many of them as far back as our childhood. We carry wounds, battle scars, emotional garbage that affects how we deal with things today. We need the strength that can come through a good word from others.
Why do people need a good word from you? Because their lives are broken and hurting and the words that come out of your mouth can strengthen those who lack strength. Your words can encourage someone who is ready to give up.
The second reason people need a good word from you is because God is not finished shaping them.
II. BECAUSE GOD IS NOT FINISHED SHAPING THEM
Notice what Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”
Most of us love this verse and have memorized it by heart…..but we often forget that this verse applies to other people too. God did not just give this verse to encourage your heart, He also gave this verse to other people. As we continue to grow in Christ like character we continue to become less focused on ourselves and begin to become more focused on other people and how we can be used of God to help them.
I am reminded of a passage in Philippians 2:3-4 that says, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves, do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”
Why do people need a good word from you? Because God is not finished shaping them. The third reason is because your words have the power to help them.
III. BECAUSE YOUR WORDS HAVE THE POWER TO HELP THEM
Let’s briefly look at two Proverbs that talk about how words have the power to help others. Let’s first notice Proverbs 25:11, “Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances.”
Let’s also read Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
Words… Are…. Powerful.
Words have the power to heal broken hearts and make dreams come true. Words have the power to make someone feel better about themself. Words also have the power to break hearts and to crush hope and dreams. Words have the power to tear someone down completely and cause them to feel completely worthless.
Job 6:25 says, “How forcible are right words!”
This is just one of the reasons why I have always strived to keep roots of bitterness and hate out of my heart and out of my mind. When hate or a root of bitterness moves into your heart or mind, rest assured no good will ever come from it. It’ll simply grow and grow and then it will come flying out of your mouth and really hurt someone.
We’d all do well to begin paying closer attention to our words and thinking more before we speak sot that the words coming out of our mouths are consistent with helping others feel like God wants them to feel and helping others do what God wants them to do.
One of the reasons God has put people in your life is so that you can grow in your ability to help others and encourage others. God wants you to be able to not only help those who are easy to encourage but God wants you to be able to control your tongue and say good words to those who may be a little harder to love.
The third reason why people need a good word from you is because your words have the power to help them. The fourth reason is because God wants you to join Him in His work of building others up.
IV. BECAUSE GOD WANTS YOU TO JOIN HIM IN HIS WORK OF BUILDING OTHERS UP
One of the most important verses you could ever memorize and apply to your life is found in Ephesians 4:29. If you have not memorized this verse, please do it today. Notice what it says, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” Ephesians 4:29
Written or spoken, words are continuously propelling us through life. They lift us up, drag us down, wound us deeply or heal our hearts. Words have the power to break confidences, build life time friendships or start wars.
Words can make or break us, both as individuals and as a society.
The words you speak can have a profound effect on the people that hear them. Are you encouraging or discouraging? Are you building up your children, your spouse, your friend or even the stranger you pass on the street? Or are you tearing down your own family with words of criticism, bitterness and judgment?
What have you been saying lately?
In the Bible, James compares the human tongue to a horse. We have mastered controlling this tremendous, spirited animal with a small piece of metal, yet we are far from controlling the words that fall from our lips.
In preparation to sharing this message today, I read through the introduction of the devotional guide that we will be using and read something that really stood out to me that I would like to share with you. The author of 30 Days to Taming the Tongue, wrote this,
“Words are the vehicle through which we communicate our thoughts; the tongue is the driver. As such, it takes us to our destiny. Moving in spiritual maturity requires that we learn to speak the right words in the right season and for the right reason.” P.9
I think she is right but I would like to add something else to that as well that reflects the kind of spiritual maturity that God wants us to have in our lives. Here is how I would say it.
“Moving toward spiritual maturity requires that we learn to speak the right words at the right time and for the right reason… and it also requires that we learn to leave unsaid the wrong thing at a tempting moment.”
Ephesians 4:29 says, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.”
CLOSING COMMENTS
This morning I have tried to help you see a Biblical answer to the question “Why do people need a good word from you?”
I have shared with you 4 Biblical reasons why people need a good word from you.
As we begin these next 30 days, let’s begin them with a commitment to taming our tongue and giving a good word to people who need it.