[0:00] My heart's been touched this morning with the children's lesson. And I had to think of that verse in Malachi, the end of Malachi, where it says that He will send Elijah, or the spirit of Elijah, and He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.
[0:22] And it's a good lesson. And the power of the blood of Jesus, may all of our children experience that power as they grow, as they mature and they find Jesus.
[0:40] May they find that freedom. Hallelujah. Grieve not the Holy Spirit, the Bible says.
[0:51] I think it's in Ephesians where we find that verse. If you want to turn to Ephesians chapter 4. Read some verses there that just the last few days, it seems like that's what kept coming to me was to grieve not the Holy Spirit.
[1:16] When we're told not to do something, that means we have the opportunity to do it. We can do it.
[1:29] Ephesians 4, I think we'll go down to verse 22 to start. It says that, They put off concerning the former conversation of the old man.
[1:43] I believe that word conversation may mean lifestyle or life. Putting off that former conversation of the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.
[1:55] And be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
[2:07] Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor. For we are members one of another. Be angry and sin not.
[2:19] Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. I had a brother text me maybe a month ago or so. And he texted me a picture of that verse and asked, what does that mean?
[2:34] Be angry and sin not. Be angry and sin not. That's how I believe Paul wrote this.
[2:44] And that's how he, at least that's how the King James reads. And I don't know for sure, but here's my thought on that.
[2:56] That we all are given a sense of, we know what's right and what's wrong. And when something happens in our life or we see something that is unjust or wrong, we have an emotion called anger.
[3:15] Something in us rises up like, that's wrong. That's not, God doesn't like that. And I believe this was my answer to the brother.
[3:29] I mean, I'm, it may mean more than this, but this is what I mentioned was, that we have the emotion of anger about something, but we don't allow that emotion to cause us to do evil.
[3:45] Be angry, have that emotion, feel that, feel what God feels, but don't sin. Don't bring sinful words and actions into that feeling of anger.
[3:58] That's one way I believe that we can explain that work, that verse. Verse 27, neither give place to the devil.
[4:13] You know, Satan knows where and when he can take an advantage of what comes out of us. He, as soon as we give place to the devil, let's just say, I mean, it's very interesting, very interesting that that verse is the next one.
[4:30] To not give place to the devil. As soon as we act upon anger, I believe that we are giving place to the devil. How many of us have ever been angry?
[4:44] How many of us have ever allowed that anger to, cause us to do something we shouldn't have? See, that's where we give place to the devil.
[4:56] And then he goes on in verse 28, he says, let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands, the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
[5:16] Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers.
[5:31] I want to just pause on that verse a little bit too. Let him that stole steal no more. He's talking about a people, a life that has been changed.
[5:45] Him that used to do bad things, unfair things, do it no more. Steal no more. How many of us in our old life especially have, can look back and say, yeah, we used to this, we used to that.
[6:03] We, maybe we took advantage of people. Maybe we stole the glory of what belonged to somebody else, or maybe not glory, maybe that's the wrong word, but praise or honor or whatever.
[6:21] That belonged to somebody else, but we got, you know, somebody else behind the scenes actually did it, but we got the praise for it. That kind of thing.
[6:31] You know, it's not just money. Is what I'm trying to say. It's not just stealing money, but what about other things? What about time?
[6:42] And, and just unfair treatment to others. This is a commandment that we don't steal those things from each other.
[6:56] That we don't take advantage of when we easily can. But rather, let him labor. Let him work with his hands, the thing which is good.
[7:09] Why? So that we end up with extra. And we can actually give to those that have need. Are we doing that?
[7:20] Are we willing to work with our own hands so that we have to give? Let him that stole steal no more. We can take advantage of people.
[7:33] And God is saying no more of that. But then we went on and we read there in verse 29, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto who?
[7:53] Those that hear you. The hearers. The next verse says, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye were sealed unto the day of redemption.
[8:06] What a precious word whereby you are sealed. The Holy Spirit, when we are saved, when we're born again, born of the Spirit, He seals that.
[8:18] He confirms that with us, that we are His child. That Spirit that bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. He will see us through.
[8:30] He sealed it. If we continue to abide in Him. Verse 30 there, where it says, I mean the first part of that verse, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.
[8:44] That's what, that burden came on me. It's like, do we do that sometimes? Do we grieve Him? He says that verse, that word right after He says, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying.
[9:04] And then He goes on in verse 31, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be a kind one to another.
[9:19] So in other words, rather than all the bitterness, the wrath, the anger, the clamor, the evil speaking, with all malice, put it away. Let it be far from us.
[9:32] But then He says, but to be kind one to another. Tender hearted. That would be a soft heart. A tender heart.
[9:44] Our hearts were tender this morning toward our children, these beautiful children. Right? That's how we're supposed to be to each other. Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
[10:00] Amen? He's forgiven us. He's taken it away. Took our sin on Himself, on that cross.
[10:13] If He did all that, and we were praising Him for that. Thank you, Enos, for that lesson. So wonderful for us older ones. He did all that.
[10:24] And then we somehow think we have the right to not forgive. I think we preached on that a few Sundays ago. As God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you, we can and do grieve the Holy Spirit with our words when they are not sanctified.
[10:48] Our tongue is often what brings hurt and pain to others. Our words may be the most weighty matter that ever comes out of our life.
[11:06] You know, some people have a way of just, you know, living a good life, and they're honest. I can think of a man in my past that was a very honest man, very good man, as far as just his daily living.
[11:27] But the words were the heavier matter. They weren't sanctified, at least not always. And I can say that about myself.
[11:42] How many of us men can honestly say that my words are always sanctified? They always edify. They're always a gracious and a blessing to others to hear.
[11:59] God really spoke to me this morning on this subject for me personally. I want to look at different scriptures now.
[12:10] And, you know, it's so amazing. Sometimes do a study on just this subject in Proverbs and throughout the whole Bible for that matter. But the Bible has an amazing amount of scripture to talk about our words and what we say.
[12:28] We know this verse. This is probably the most familiar one in Proverbs 15, verse 1. I'm going to read... Actually, if you want to turn there, you can. I'm going to read a couple of verses there.
[12:38] Proverbs 15, verse 1. You know the verse. A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.
[12:51] Wow, I have witnessed that so many times. And sometimes, you know, we'll have maybe a customer that is disillusioned about something and he's angry or she.
[13:03] I've had both, men and women. And my prayer is usually to... How can I... You know, you're going to make that phone call and you heard that the customer's upset.
[13:17] How can I speak in a way that I can just ease that upsetness and make it go away so we don't have a problem? You know, we're very careful to do that with people we deal with.
[13:30] And there's... There's a name to protect. Namely, your business or yourself.
[13:43] There's money involved usually. So we're very careful. And many times, a soft answer...
[13:54] I'd say my brother's probably better at that than I am. But it seems like he has a way to just kind of, you know, make the customer happy again.
[14:08] But a soft answer turneth away wrath. But grievous words... Now, if we defend ourselves and we begin to, you know, make them feel even worse than that, it's their problem.
[14:21] You just have a problem. Whatever. I'm not saying it always works. Some people are just, you know, ridiculous and don't... They don't care. They don't want to be reasonable.
[14:33] But here's where I was... What my thought is on this. You know, we do that when we have something to protect. Our reputation, money. But what about in our own family?
[14:47] What about those that are close to us that we really love? And do we take the freedom to not give a soft answer and just argue back and just, you know, words clash and...
[15:03] We stir up anger. Verse 2 says, The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright, but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness.
[15:18] And then it says, The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the good and the evil. I'm sorry, I didn't read that right. Beholding the evil and the good. The eyes of the Lord.
[15:32] Could we say this morning the ears of the Lord? He hears everything we say. A wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.
[15:48] I was intrigued with that verse. And a wholesome tongue, we understand what that is. Worshiping words. Life-giving words.
[15:59] Wholesome. Up-building. You know, and we'll cover this later, but it doesn't mean that you just shrug everything under the carpet and you never rebuke.
[16:12] We'll get to that. We're called for those things as well. But even that can be wholesome and right. It should be. But perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.
[16:24] I looked up that word breach. And here's what the Webster says. The act of breaking or state of being broken.
[16:36] A rupture. A break. A gap. Something that breaks. And he's talking about the spirit. I believe the spirit of another person.
[16:50] Or between people. Separation between friends by means of enmity, difference, quarrel, infraction, injury, invasion, bereavement, loss of a friend, and its consequent affliction.
[17:11] That's what, that's some of what Webster says about that word. The tongue can break. This is my own note and I messed it up.
[17:28] I'm not sure what I was saying here. But it can add deep wounds and injure the spirit of another person. And that's what that verse, I believe, is talking about.
[17:39] Children, friends, marriage partners. The tongue. Is it a tree of life? Is it where we get life?
[17:54] Where we give life? Now let's look at Proverbs 18, verse 21. You don't have to turn there, but you might want to mark these down. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
[18:12] Death and life. So, before you think that the tongue and what we say is not all that important, this verse will just completely diffuse that.
[18:26] Because death and life are in the tongue. Something is said to us, what do we say back? Death or life?
[18:39] You have the option. Death or life? It can be a son to his father. It can be the other way around. Wife, husband.
[18:56] Proverbs 16, verse 23 says, let me see what we have here. We have, yeah, just another two verses. The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth and addeth learning to his lips.
[19:11] You know, how many people want to be wise? We want to be wise, but we never look at this subject. We're not really willing to go there. And you know, it makes us vulnerable. It makes me vulnerable to talk about the tongue to you because I have one too.
[19:28] But we need to. It's necessary. The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth and addeth learning to his lips.
[19:40] Praise God that we can learn. We can open our hearts and say, God, I need to learn this. I've failed in this. The next verse says, pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones.
[19:59] who of us does not appreciate pleasant words? Maybe we don't deserve them, but somebody just gives us pleasant words.
[20:11] You know, an encouraging word. And especially if it's, you know, if we're walking right and we're doing what we believe is right in God's eyes and not perfectly, but we just, sometimes we need that.
[20:32] We need an encouraging word. It's pleasant. It's healthy. It's, it's a blessing. It's life, the Bible says. Proverbs chapter 12, verse 18 says, there is that speaking like the piercing, piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is health.
[20:57] There it is again. The one translation says it brings healing. The tongue of the wise brings healing. What do our words do?
[21:10] And then the next verse says, the lip of truth shall be established forever. The lip of truth shall be established forever.
[21:20] But a lying tongue is but for a moment. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truly are His delight.
[21:34] Another very powerful. Now we're talking about truth and lies. What about a white lie? What about a half truth? You know, all those things come to mind.
[21:47] Sometimes it's maybe not a full lie, but it's also not fully true. Do we desire our words to be His delight?
[22:04] Or are we okay with our lips being an abomination to the Lord? Now let's go to Colossians chapter 4.
[22:18] Justin, could I get some water, please? I forgot to bring some. Colossians chapter 4. And I'm sure some of you are thinking, well, when are we going to James?
[22:29] We'll go there too. James has a lot to say about the tongue. Colossians 4 verse 3. With all praying also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds.
[22:47] This is Paul talking or writing to the Colossians and saying that he thank you that he would he appreciates prayer that God would open the door so he could speak the mystery of Christ while he was in bonds that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak walk in wisdom toward them that are without redeeming the time.
[23:20] He mentions them that are without those that are not in God's kingdom they're not born again. Verse 6 Let your speech be always with grace seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer every man.
[23:35] I believe Paul had a great concern that they would speak with carefulness to unbelievers that the Lord would give them the opportunity to speak but that it would be the right kind of speech and he says that our words our speech would always be with grace but seasoned with salt.
[24:02] Somebody want to explain that? What was Paul saying? Seasoned with salt. Any thoughts on that? Just real quick. Any thoughts?
[24:13] What is seasoned with salt? Tastes good? Salt does different things. Yes it flavors but it also preserves.
[24:26] Any other thoughts? Right. salt makes you thirsty.
[24:41] What about the truth? You know just because you're did you have a thought? It's true.
[24:55] Right. Justin said that. Don't be afraid if you have something to say. But yeah that's good. It makes you thirsty. Salt makes you thirsty. And so yeah that's actually a really good point because if they're preaching then it should make you thirsty.
[25:12] Right. Especially to an unbeliever. And that's what Paul's talking about. And but also with truth. Like I said earlier it doesn't mean that you don't ever rebuke or correct or speak the truth just because they're filled with grace.
[25:29] But but we can do so in a loving way. We need to do so in a loving way. But with salt. Yes. That's amazing that he just he didn't just say with grace.
[25:43] He said seasoned with salt that you would know how to answer every man. He had a great concern on this thing of speech.
[25:58] He was suffering for the things that he said. Right. He was in prison. He was in bonds in prison. And suffering because of the things he said.
[26:12] It offended people. Let's go to James now. James chapter one. We'll end up in chapter three actually going to three.
[26:25] But there is one verse in chapter one. Verse 26 says this is James now talking of the tongue. If any man among you seem to be religious.
[26:39] Seem to be religious. This is you know in a spiritual sense. Not just not just religion of man. I don't believe he's talking about that.
[26:50] But seem to be religious. Or righteous would be another word. And bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his own heart. This man's religion is vain.
[27:02] So you can seem to be religious. You can do so many good things. You can be pretty good actually. But if you can't bridle your tongue you'll deceive your own heart and your religion is vain.
[27:22] Now chapter 3 of James starting in let's see I think we'll just start in verse 1.
[27:34] My brethren be not many masters knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation for in many things we offend all if any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body.
[27:55] Behold we put bits in horses mouths that they may obey us and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships which though they be so great and are driven of fierce winds yet are they turned about with a very small helm whithersoever the governor listeth.
[28:23] I remember doing farming with horses and I can't imagine trying to plow with three horses up front and three in the back and with no bit in their mouth.
[28:40] I mean it would be pretty crooked. They'd probably just walk wherever they want to or run away or whatever but with the right bit and the right everything tension and a driver that knew how to drive them right you could control them very well and that's what he's talking about.
[29:00] We make them go where we want them to go. That's a way of and then also a big ship. it's not a big thing that guides that big ship out in the ocean.
[29:14] Okay where were we? Verse 5 Even so the tongue is a little member and boasteth great things. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth.
[29:30] And the tongue is a fire a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members that it defileth the whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature and it is set on fire of hell.
[29:50] For every kind of beast and of birds and of serpents and of things in the sea is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind.
[30:02] But the tongue can no man tame. It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. Oh Lord help us with our tongue.
[30:19] It's full of a deadly poison. If we let our tongue just go in the flesh with the heart of and we'll talk about our heart later.
[30:29] but it is full of a deadly poison and unruly evil. How many of us have witnessed a man's tongue being changed when his heart was changed?
[30:47] We cannot do this by trying harder. So if you're thinking that well I'm going to try harder, I'm going to not talk like I do, I'm going to be nicer, you're not going to be able to do it.
[30:59] Bible says you can't. No man can tame it. So don't even try without God. Oh, I'll add that.
[31:10] You can try but you allow God to tame your tongue. Verse 9, therefore bless we God, even the Father, and therewith curse we men. Did you get that?
[31:22] We bless God, we come to church, bless God, but the same tongue can also curse somebody, which are made after the similitude of God.
[31:32] They were made in God's image. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
[31:44] Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries, either a vine figs?
[31:55] So can no fountain both yield salt, water, and fresh. Who is a wise man endued with knowledge among you? Who wants to be wise?
[32:08] Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness and wisdom. But if ye have bitter, envying, and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth.
[32:21] This wisdom, descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish. For where envying strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work.
[32:36] I think we'll stop reading there for now. We might get a few more verses later. Do we have a mixed tongue?
[32:52] one day it's so sweet, like honeycomb, pleasant, then something happens in our life and the sweetness is gone and it's no more pleasant.
[33:13] Don't glory in that, but he also warns us, you know, if this thing called envy is in our lives. That envy is a powerful tool of Satan to let envy or jealousy rise up in our hearts.
[33:33] It has destroyed many lives. It has split many churches and homes for that matter. Envy, jealousy, jealousy, jealousy, those things that are of our enemy, those things grieve the Holy Spirit.
[33:57] And the Bible says to grieve not. It's a commandment. Grieve not the Holy Spirit. And when we talk, we should think about that. Will I grieve the Holy Spirit if I say this?
[34:10] or if I say it in this way? And like I said, it makes us vulnerable to speak of these things because I know that I have done that.
[34:28] And I know my family knows that I have done that in the past. But I also know that God is purifying us, changing us.
[34:40] And I would be dishonest to say that, no, I've walked this perfectly. That's not true. Let's read the next verse.
[34:52] But the wisdom that is from above is first pure. I just love when the Bible tells us something negative, like all those other devilish things.
[35:03] And then the next verse is, but the wisdom of God that is from above, it says, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy.
[35:22] You don't need to pretend, it's just who we are, right? It's peaceable, it's easy to be entreated. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
[35:34] What does the Bible say? Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God, I believe it says in Matthew. But this is what God is looking for from our lives.
[35:49] The question, has God been able to change our tongue? God wants to change us.
[36:00] Why do I ask that question? Because God wants to. But like Enos had shared something about, you know, we have a choice. God did all this, He forgave us our sins, but in these matters we have a choice.
[36:18] He wants to change us, but He can only do that to a tongue that is surrendered to Him. This morning, maybe we need to surrender that little powerful member of our body that can work so great iniquity.
[36:37] Have we ever surrendered that to God? The psalmist says, set watch, O Lord, before my mouth, keep the door of my lips.
[36:51] See, he was surrendering his tongue to God. He was saying, God, set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth. Lord, stop me from saying evil things or nasty stuff or bitter stuff.
[37:06] Keep the door of my lips. What a prayer. Also in Psalm 19, verse 14, I think there's just one verse maybe here, but he says, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
[37:32] Oh, that God would do such a deep work in us, that it would change our speech if it's necessary, that we would surrender our lips to our creator in that way, that our words would be full of grace.
[37:48] we had the children up here this morning and appreciate that we could pray over them. And I thought, why don't we do that more?
[37:59] What a beautiful thing to pray over children. But how many children have been deeply wounded by harsh words that have cut their hearts and made them bitter or angry?
[38:13] The Bible says, Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, lest they be discouraged. Just some thoughts here.
[38:24] We can stand or we can be firm. In fact, we need to be firm at times without destroying with words.
[38:39] I've needed to repent of this and ask for forgiveness. But with God's grace, I think it's safe to say my speech has changed as my heart was changed.
[38:55] You can't have one and not the other. Because Jesus said to the Pharisees, He said, O generation of vipers, how can you being evil speak good things?
[39:08] For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. it always comes from the heart. It's never the actual, yes, it's the words that do the damage, but those evil things come out of the heart.
[39:23] There's something not wired right. There's something not connected right. But if we want to speak peace and life, then we must be connected to the vine that gives that life.
[39:35] that's why Jesus said, without me you can do nothing. And no man can tame the tongue. But he can. Thank God that Jesus can and he wants to.
[39:49] It's just a matter of whether we're surrendered to him. If we are rash, cruel, angry, unloving with our words, it's because we have a heart problem.
[40:03] You know, and I know I mentioned fathers a few times. That's very right. But what about brothers, sisters, in the family?
[40:17] How is it with other family members? Do they know that your words are full of grace, seasoned with salt, or do they consider them pretty harsh?
[40:31] Do we speak to others like we want to be spoken to? Are they harsh words that bring death, yelling at each other when you could talk peacefully and graciously and respect God's creation?
[40:50] And especially in Christianity where, you know, how does God see it? If you just stop and think about it, if I yell at Brother Enos and I'm very angry with him and I really let him know how angry I am at him, but God redeemed him with his own blood.
[41:08] How does God look at that? Am I better than God all of a sudden? There's no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, but we give condemnation.
[41:27] Words of understanding condemnation with wisdom rather than condemnation. If we have a habit of speaking condemnation, we may be condemning what God has redeemed and sanctified.
[41:45] And there in Romans, I think it's in chapter 8, verse 1, where it says, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, that walk after the Spirit, not after the flesh.
[41:58] And then Christians come along and condemn. God help us with our tongue.
[42:10] This is so important. Can we be a church that commits to just speaking with grace and speak the truth in love?
[42:22] We hear that statement a lot. We hear the statement of, speak the truth but do it in love. Well, may that be a reality to us, not just words. As parents, we heard this morning, I think Dan alluded to this, that we are, yeah, he read some verses actually about teaching our children daily and the importance of that.
[42:46] We are to nurture them in the Lord. Scolding should be limited. Now, these are my thoughts. But scolding should be limited in ways as to how much we nurture them, how much encouragement we are giving them.
[43:04] We are called to train them, and when they are very small is the time to start, when their hearts are tender, soft, and willing. We can destroy or breach, like the Bible used the word breach, break a spirit.
[43:21] we can destroy or breach their spirit by ignoring their need and by not speaking words of life. It is either life or death that comes out of our mouth as we are taking care of little ones.
[43:37] And what I mentioned earlier about our scolding or our discipline and our harshness, whatever you want to call it, you know, correction, should be limited as to how much we nurture them and encourage them in the Lord.
[43:53] I've heard in the past, and I don't remember what they are, but people have done studies and have given ratios in life, you know, like out of every ten times of correction or whatever, you need this many times of nurture.
[44:13] And correction is also nurture, so don't get me wrong about that. But think about that. Is it a constant just correcting, correcting, correcting, don't do, don't do, don't do, or is there God wants us to and actually do things and actually grow in wisdom and in nurturing them in Jesus.
[44:36] This morning they were nurtured. That was a perfect example of nurturing them in the Lord. They learned something, something that can be a established in their heart.
[44:50] Our words to our children matter. Let's just look at a verse where Jesus made a proclamation of our children. In Matthew 18, verse 10, he gives the thought that I believe God thinks to this day.
[45:14] he says, take heed that you despise not one of these little ones. For I say unto you that in heaven their angels, who is he talking about, do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
[45:33] the angels of a little child are up there beholding the face of our Father.
[45:45] What is he saying? God cares for little children in a very special way. And we can violate, we can grieve the Holy Spirit by just a wrong word to our children.
[46:06] God has precious care for his little people. They are very, very valuable to him. And I believe God is speaking that to us this morning about our children as we prayed.
[46:20] And as they heard that, I sense that very much, very deeply, that God wants to speak to us about our children, about each other too, the tongue.
[46:37] We need to pray. We have the opportunity to pray. That we, if we have grieved the Holy Spirit, if we have wronged, here's the beautiful thing, if we have wronged each other, or in our families, we can repent and we can make that right and we can say, God, I want to be different.
[47:01] Help me. Change me. That's the beauty of the gospel. Let's just stand together. prayer. And I want to just pray, pray with me that God would just hear our cry, hear our hearts, and that we would actually be willing to surrender, not just the tongue, but yes, the tongue, that God would speak to us before we speak.
[47:30] God would minister His life to us before we just ramble on and tell people things that aren't, whatever, edifying.
[47:42] And so, the way to do that is simply to come to Him and surrender and surrender our hearts to Him totally. Truth, rebuke, but with glorious words.
[48:01] Jesus rebuked people. Sometimes we need to. We need to correct things that are wrong. But that God would give us and show us when and how. Not just in the flesh, because that's what we're talking about.
[48:15] In the flesh, it's devilish. And it never brings the results that we want or that God wants. Lord, we come to You and God, we just want to thank You for Your Word.
[48:30] Lord, I pray, God, that we would be open to all of Your Word. Not just the parts that are easy, but these hard things like the tongue.
[48:42] This thing that where You say in Your Word that is either death or life. And God, we want life. We need life. We need it from each other.
[48:54] We need to hear blessing from each other and not cursing evil speaking and all the things that we read today. Lord, we need You in this.
[49:05] And God, we just want to surrender our tongue to You and our lips, that our lips would be here to praise our Maker and praise God and bring blessing to others around us.
[49:17] And Father, if we need to speak truth at times that might hurt or that it would be truth or rebuke or whatever, correction to our children even.
[49:29] But Lord, that it would be gracious words seasoned with salt and deep meaning that will change those that are hearing us, Lord. Father, help us in this.
[49:40] God, forgive us or we've failed in the past. Jesus, we've been so careless with how we throw words out sometimes and hurt others.
[49:52] I know I have been, Lord, and I just pray, God, that You would just forgive and cleanse. And God, can we just put those things into that jar where Your blood is applied that we saw in the children's class, Lord, that Your blood would just cover us and erase and delete those things, Lord, that were wrong, Father.
[50:14] God, we give them to You this morning. And we ask God for a cleansing in our hearts. Lord, that we would be able to speak what You have us speak.
[50:28] If we are Yours and we claim to have religion, we claim to be religious, like James says, but we don't bridle our tongue, then our religion is just vain.
[50:42] And it means nothing to You. So, Lord, I pray that You'd help us. To be continued to be