MASTERING MY MOUTH
August 3, 2003 Am - Danny Williams
Getting a Grip on Life - Part 1 of 5
Proverbs 13:1-3
Proverbs 18:4-8 18:19-21
The average man speaks enough words in one year to fill 66 books, 800 pages long.
He speaks 20,000 words a day. The average woman 30,000 words a day.
We are a nation of talkers.
Talk shows on TV, talk shows on the radio, car phones. We like to talk.
Today, 55 million Americans will listen to 400,000 pastors deliver over one billion words.
When it’s all said and done, a lot more is said than done.
The Bible says in Proverbs 13:3, "He who guards his mouth controls himself. But he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin."
The Bible says that self control means controlling the tongue.
There is so much in Proverbs on our words.
There’s over 120 verses related to different things about our speech.
I want to summarize everything in three statements -- The Sermon on the Mouth.
1. Think before you speak.
2. Always speak the truth.
3. Speak the truth in love.
That’s what Proverbs says about our words.
1. THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK -- contemplate before you communicate.
Proverbs 16:23 "Intelligent people think before they speak. What they say is then more persuasive."
The biggest battle you will ever face is your own mouth, not other people’s
Get your mind in gear before you engage your tongue.
Have you seen these game shows where they guess the answer before the question is given?
They always get it wrong, because they assume they know what’s being said.
Don’t never assume nothing!
Learn to think before you speak.
"You will have to live with the consequences of everything you say."
People Listen to your Words- They reveille who you are
Mother Story
A mother invited some people to dinner. At the table,
she turned to her six-year-old daughter and said,
"Would you like to say the blessing?"
I wouldn’t know what to say," the girl replied. "Just
say what you hear Mommy say," the mother answered. The
daughter bowed her head and said,
"Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to
dinner?"
Dan Fouts, the former quarter back for the San Diego Chargers, now retired, said, "Now that I’m retired I want to say something I’ve always wanted to say: As a quarterback I want to say, All defensive linemen are sissies."
You have to live with the consequences of what you say.
The Bible says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue."
Have you ever set off a chain reaction with your words?
People have died for saying the wrong things.
Proverbs 20:25 "It is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider his vows."
Choose your commitments carefully.
Calculate the cost.
You will say words that will get the attention of the Devil and turn on the law of Sin and death,
Or you will say words that will get the attention of God, and turn on the law of Life in Christ Jesus
So Think before you speak.
It’s a trap to agree to something before you’ve really thought it through.
Talk is not cheap! It can cost you a lot.
Why?
Because
Every time you speak you are giving someone authority to work in your life.
So since you are going to be speaking anyway, you might as well put God’s word on your mouth and give him authority
Either Angels will be released on your behalf or demons
How many know?
Talk is not cheap.
It’s always easier to get in than it is to get out.
It’s easier to get into debt than get out of debt.
It’s easier to fill up your schedule than to get out of your schedule.
It’s always easier to get in than to get out. "It’s a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider his vows."
Think before you speak.
That is a hard, hard lesson to learn.
Why?
Because
What ever your Life is like, is a result of your tongue.
What you say can make you sick or well, happy or sad, rich or poor, can get you married or divorced.
What you say can win friends or make enemies.
What you say can get you hired or fired.
Proverbs 12:13 The wicked is snared by the transgression of [his] lips: but the just shall come out of trouble.
Have you ever said "Yes" to a salesman and later regretted it?
Have you ever made a promise to your kids and they wouldn’t forget it?
Or they wouldn’t let you forget it? Have you ever accepted an invitation and later regretted you had?
Think before you speak.
2. ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH.
Proverbs deals with a lot of kinds of dishonesty -- lying and deceit and exaggeration.
I want to talk with you about the failure to be frank with people.
Isn’t that a form of dishonesty?
When you don’t really tell people the truth?
In theory you would all agree that honest is the best policy.
But in practice it often works out very different.
We always have a reason why it’s not a good time to be honest in our particular situation.
"If I told that person the truth you’d never know what would happen!
They might blow up.
They might get mad at me."
Proverbs 10: Says "one who holds back the truth causes trouble."
Why do we hold back the truth?
Because we’re cowards.
We’d rather do anything we can to avoid conflict.
We want to keep the peace, not make waves, not rock the boat.
In a relationship, many times you will not be honest with that person because you’d rather be passive and keep the peace than shake up, make waves and be honest.
In a relationship, you’ve got an issue with your husband/wife, mom/dad.
You start to share it and see that person getting defensive or exploding and you back off and say, "Forget it!
Superficiality is better than handling that!"
You back off and don’t deal with the issues and the Bible says "Someone who holds back the truth causes trouble."
What kind of trouble?
Dishonesty destroys relationships.
Bitterness begins to rise.
You begin to develop hidden agendas.
You have hurt feelings you’re holding down.
It festers.
You stop trusting each other.
You doubt.
It’s what I call truth decay.
The relationship begins to suffer.
Some of you are watching relationships die before your eyes because you won’t face the facts.
Proverbs 24:26 means "An honest answer is the sign of a true friendship."
That says that dishonesty is a lack of love.
You don’t lie to people you love.
You level with them.
You say, "This hurts me to say it and it hurts you to hear it,
but we’ve got to deal with this."
You always tell the truth.
Intimacy is a result of truth.
Many times the Truth results in conflict.
Do you have to go through conflict in a relationship in order to have intimacy? Exactly!
If you’ve never had any conflict you’ve never gotten to some deep issues.
You’ve been superficial.
There is no intimacy without truth.
And there is no truth without conflict.
Many of you are living in superficial relationships because every time you start to deal with an issue there is conflict and you back off and say, "Forget it!
I don’t want to make waves.
I want to be at peace.
We won’t deal with the issue and we’ll pretend it’s not there."
What are you pretending not to know in your relationship?
Proverbs 28:23 "In the end people appreciate frankness more than flattery."
The alternative to being truthful and honest in a relationship is to play games. Have you ever seen anybody play games in their relationship?
Marriages, schools, churches, offices.
You see people playing games all the time.
They say one thing when they mean another.
They hint and they make suggestions but they never come out and say, "You’re not meeting my needs!" or "I’m not meeting your needs!" or "We’ve got a problem!" We need to deal with it and face it head on and be honest.
Someone who holds back the truth always causes problems.
a false peace.
It’s no way to live.
Eventually the relationship, if you’re not honest, will die.
The divorce rate in America is skyrocketing.
Managers, those of you who have people working under you, you need to be honest and frank with the people.
Tell them when they’re making mistakes.
We need to learn the difference between
"You blew it!" and
"I don’t like you!"
We think if we criticize somebody then people don’t like us.
No. You love your kids don’t you?
Do you correct your kids?
You correct them because you do love them.
I’d die for my kids and because or that, I correct them when they’re wrong.
Being frank with somebody means you love them.
Leading them along means you don’t care.
That’s why the Bible says, "Think before you speak."
And then always speak the truth.
If you don’t deal with this now, you will deal with it inevitably.
One of two things will happen.
1. Either it will build up and build up until,
all of a sudden one day, it explodes in a nuclear reaction and, in a marriage, maybe one of you walks out
2. or it will just die a slow death.
Evaluate yourself. How honest am I? One to ten.
"How honest am I with those who are closest to me?"
If they have absolutely no idea the frustration you’re going through
If they know the issues but you don’t talk about it, it’s off limits in our friendship –
If you’d say "We have intentionally put all the cards on the table and we’re working through the conflict and we can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel toward intimacy
The Bible says in Proverbs, learn to keep quiet until you’ve thought it out. Think before you speak.
3. ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH IN LOVE
That’s the qualifier.
You don’t use truth as a club.
Truth without love is Brutality
It’s Cruel
Proverbs 12:17-19, "Thoughtless words can wound as deeply as any sword. But wisely spoken words can heal."
You can wound people or you can heal.
You can hurt or heal people with your words.
That’s true isn’t it?
You’ve been both healed and hurt by words.
It’s our choice.
Sometimes I grieve over the thoughtless things I say to people I love the most.
My wife and my kids, whom I love the most, sometimes I say the most thoughtless things. That bothers me.
How can I say things to somebody that’s most important in my life?
Have you ever heard anybody justify their insensitivity by calling it candor?
"I just say what I feel."
The Bible says that’s a fool!
Proverbs calls that person a fool.
"I just speak what’s on my mind!"
That’s dumb and tactless.
That’s not a virtue, that’s a vice.
The Bible says you speak the truth in love. Everything we do is in love.
Look at
Proverbs 15:4, "Gentle words cause life and health."
Goodness and graciousness go together.
The good person is the gracious person.
Gentle words cause life and health.
Notice the power of gentle words.
They cause life and they cause health.
When you confront -- you care enough to confront but you confront in love because those words cause life and health.
Story
A pastor friend of mine tells the story of being in a hospital room with a wife and doctor and a man who had been in a coma for several months. The doctor said to the wife, "He’s never going to come out of it. It’s hopeless." And he walked out of the room. The pastor walked over to the man in a coma, got close to his face and said, "John, I know you’ve heard what the doctor said. But he’s wrong. You are going to make it. You’re going to come out of this coma. I don’t care what the doctor said, you are going to make it!" Tears began to well up in the sides of the man’s eyes and run down his cheeks. The man did recover and is active in a church today. He said the turning point in his recovery were those loving words, "You’re going to make it!" All of a sudden I wanted to live, he said. "Gentle words cause life and health."
Proverbs 12:25 "A word of encouragement does wonders."
Would you agree with that?
I can live two weeks on one good compliment.
One of my favorite heroes of the Bible is Barnabus.
His nickname was "the Encourager".
I can’t think of a better title for your tombstone that it to say "the Encourager -- he lifted people up."
Everybody else discourages people.
Be an encourager.
Speak the truth, but speak it in love.
You’re going to meet a lot of people this next week.
Without even knowing who those people are I can tell you, everybody is having a tough time.
Everybody is hurting.
Everybody sitting around you is hurting, just in different areas.
Be kind to everybody.
Close:
Personal project: Everybody you come into contact with this week, build them up -- don’t tear them down.
Say a word of encouragement, don’t give a put down or sarcasm, don’t tease them with a put down statement.
Build them up.
Speak the truth in love.
An encouraging word does wonders.
How often do I encourage others?
Do I give more strokes than pokes?
Do I nag or brag more?
say something encouraging to your husband/wife/children/friends..."
Build them up.
When you look at these kinds of statements, are you ashamed at what you say.
Have you heard anybody say this, "I just said something and I’m so surprised that I said that.
That’s not like me."
Yes, it is. It’s exactly you.
The Bible says that your words are the window of your soul.
The Bible says that your words reveal your character, your words say who you really are.
You say, "Where in the world did that come from?"
It came from your heart.
Proverbs 10:32 The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable: but the mouth of the wicked [speaketh] frowardness.
What is it in your life you’re pretending not to know? Like a big pink elephant in your living room and you say, "What elephant?" There’s a major problem that needs to be dealt with in your relationship but you’re ignoring it. What problem? It’s a fatal mistake to do that.
What do you do? Go home and think before you speak.
You might even write out what you need to say.
Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through the lips and the fingertips.
If you can’t put it on paper you haven’t really thought it out.
Then you speak the truth in love.
Take a calculated risk and speak the truth.
Risk the conflict and go through the conflict because the intimacy is worth it.
The things that come out of your mouth come out of your heart.
The problem is not my tongue.
The problem is my heart.
It’s me!
I say hurtful things because inside I’m hurting.
I need a new heart.
But God specializes in heart transplants.
Jesus Christ said, I came to give you a new heart and to heal your hurt, so you’ll stop hurting others.
To heal your insecurities so you’ll stop putting down others.
The reason you don’t want to build up others is because you think if they get built up and I’m not, then I get left out.
God wants to heal your huts so you can stop hurting others with the way you talk.
If you’ve never opened your life to Jesus Christ do it today.
He’ll give you a new heart.
That’s what it means to be born again. It means to start over.
Are you holding back truth in your relationships, in the key relationships with those people closest to you?
Some of you are in relationships that are dying right before your eyes.
There’s an issue that needs to be dealt with and nobody talks about it.
It’s a family secret.
There’s some major problems that need to be discussed.
It may be financial.
It may be sexual.
It may be parenting problems.
You’re not dealing with it.
"He who holds back the truth causes trouble."
You don’t want to deal with the conflict.
You’ve got to care enough to confront and you’ve got to fight to save that relationship.
You’ve got to stop pretending that you don’t know what you know.
You need to think before you speak and you need to speak the truth and you need to speak it in love.
