Words: Words are Power

Praise God from you, all blessings flow.

Praise Him, all creatures, here below.

Praise Him above you, every host.

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Well, Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to come once again,

the opportunity to worship you and to sing your praises.

And Jesus, as we come before you this morning and get ready to breed your word

and to just focus on you, Father, I pray that you would speak powerfully into our hearts.

Lord, we are so thankful for everything that you've done for us on the cross,

everything that you've done for us in our lives,

and Lord, the immense distance that you've brought us from in the past.

Father, I pray this morning that we would not be satisfied with what you've done,

but Lord, there would be a hunger in our heart to want more of you and to grow in you.

And Lord, to be filled with your spirit and to surrender more to you.

And so God, as we gather this morning, we pray for our students,

who are starting at the school and our teachers and our administrators.

God, they got a long haul ahead of them.

But Father, we are believed that you are more than able to supply every need that they have,

to empower them to do everything that you're calling them to do this year.

And so Father, I pray that you would be with each of them in whatever context it is,

surround them with the right people in their lives.

Lord, put people in their lives to minister to them in those contexts,

and Lord, help them to minister to others.

Father, we pray for all of our shut-ins,

all of our people who aren't here with us today.

We just ask that you would touch them.

And Lord, we give you this time.

I pray that you would speak and move in a powerful way

in each and every single one of our hearts.

And we love you, and we pray all this in Jesus' precious and holy name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You may be seated.

James, I see I prayed more this morning.

I mean, he says a few weeks ago,

and one of the doctors in Tuesday, he said,

you know, he said, I'm not looking for numbers to change.

We're two or three months on down the road.

And he said, we're going to do blood work.

And so they did blood work Tuesday morning,

and one time I had called them, give office,

and I answered it to him.

He said, this hall, I run some numbers by him.

He's like here.

He said, you know, we started this procedure several months ago.

Your numbers were up around 11.4.

He said, I just got your blood work back a few minutes ago.

He said, your numbers are down to 4.5.

And he said, I'm sorry.

Amen.

Thank you, God.

Thank you.

Amen.

James, chapter 1, verse 26 says,

James 1:26

if you claim to be religious,

but don't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself and your religion is

worthless. The book of James is a very strong worded book. We're gonna read

more from that here in just a second, but we are going to talk about the words

that we say over the next several weeks. And since I sat down last fall, I

typically try to take like October, November to start trying to map out what

I feel like the Lord wants us to talk about as a church for the following year.

And so this series has been planned since like last October, November, and I've

been super excited about that. Like this has been one of those series I've been

looking forward to, and it's funny that as I've prepared it this week, I've been

extremely convicted by these messages. So if you feel convicted this morning,

know that you're not and you're not alone, you're in good company. But the

average person is estimated to say but somewhere between seven and 20,000

words per day. That's a lot. And that depends a lot on your lifestyle, your

habits, your job, a lot of different things that can play into that as to

how much you have to talk. Some people have to talk more than others, some

people like to talk more than others, some people don't like to talk at all. So

somewhere between seven and twenty thousand words roll off the tip of our

tongue every single day. So the first time, well thankfully the first time I

ever preached, it went okay. The second time I preached, it was horrible. Like I

got lost, I couldn't find my place, I didn't know what I was talking about,

got super nervous, like lost my train of thought, and I told myself from that

point forward, I'm gonna write down every single word on my paper, that way if I

panic and I just like lose it in the middle of everything, I just look down, I

can just start reading, okay. So I did my word count on my sermon this morning.

It's over 1,500 words. So in the next 20 to 30 minutes, you're gonna have to

process 1,500 words that we're gonna talk about this morning if you're like

wanting to get something out of this and not waste your time for being here.

Is that fair? Not that it's gonna be good, but just so you don't waste your

time, try to make the best out of it. That's a lot. We do not realize how

effortlessly words come out of our mouth. We start talking at young ages. The

older we get, the more your words we use, the more that we talk. We, you know,

as we get older, some of us may, I was a little bit more of an extrovert as a

kid, now I'm much more introverted. I actually don't enjoy talking a whole lot.

My wife hates that. She likes to talk. It is amazing at how little thought we give

to the words that come out of our mouth, considering how powerful they are. And

that's what we're talking about this morning, how powerful our words are. Our

words carry so much power and weight with them and we really don't even think

about it. So I want to share with you a few things this morning. So there's this

doctor by the name of Masaru Amoto. He's Japanese and back in like 1994, this

this doctor becomes obsessed with how circumstances affect water, okay? Now I

want to give you a little bit of a just kind of like a prelude in this. I

cannot confirm this study, okay? I really tried to research this and look

this up and did not find like a lot of support. There was a lot of like pushback

from the scientific community on this, but there wasn't really any studies that

I saw that kind of debunked what this this scientist was saying. But in 1994,

this this Japanese doctor decides he wants to study water and he begins to

go through the process. I wonder how much words can affect water. And so he

begins to take different samples of water and he begins to speak to it and he

says positive things, he says negative things, he even goes as far as like

freezing water before he prays over it and then after he prays over it. I'm gonna ask

Pastor Timmy or Matthew if he's back there to put that that picture on the

screen and you can see like the words that he from his studies from what he

claims. Again, I'm not saying this is a hundred percent true, this is just study

I found you research it for yourself and see. So he does this study and the words

that he speaks the kind of good words he speaks freezes and like really

beautiful crystals like underneath a microscope when you start examining it

and then the words that he speaks like negative things to kind of towards the

bottom you see like you fool you make me sick evil it's just kind of distorted

looking and then he takes polluted water and he freezes it before prayer and

it's ugly and then he prays over the same sample of water supposedly and it

freezes in this beautiful crystal. Now there's other studies that have been done

where scientists have talked about how words and the frequency in which we say

things affects plant life and so there's studies on even the concept of

speaking to plants and how that can affect the health of a plant and again

there's a lot of pushback from the scientific community, there's a lot of

processes that take place as far as like trying to do controlled studies on things

so I can't verify this stuff but I do know that Harvard did a really good

study and they did a great job of their research and Harvard study was on the

hidden impact of spoken words and they did a very thorough job researching how

the brain responds to positive words and negative words and how it activates

certain areas of the brain and how it affects us as human beings. Words are

powerful and I'm sure that each and every single one of you right now can

think of a moment in your life where you can remember where someone said

something very specific to you and you can remember the time and you can

remember the place and you'll never be able to forget the word that they said

or the words that they said in that moment. It will stick with you forever

and for lack of better terms it may not have physically cut you but it felt like

it cut you to the bone and then there's times where you can remember in your

life where someone spoke something positive over you and encouraged you and

that it was the thing that you needed to get you over the hump in that moment

and how powerful that was and we talked about this this morning because we as

people we as children of God have this amazing responsibility in our life to

make sure that the words that we speak mean something that they have value and

that we don't carelessly throw these things off the tip of our tongue as if

they're meaningless because they are very meaningful and I cannot tell you how

many times in my life where I've joked with other people and said things and

aggravated people because I thought that was fun whenever I was younger and I

still like to do it occasionally but I've realized some people just don't play they

don't receive it well and I don't always say what I mean and I don't always mean

what I say and and I'm terrible with words sometimes and I've had to go back

and apologize words are powerful they mean so much and in James chapter 1

James 1:26

verse 26 he gives us this very strong verse that says if you claim to be

religious but don't control your tongue you're fooling yourself and your

religion is worthless he's writing this to Christians he's not writing this to

people of other religions he's writing this to people who claim to be followers

of Jesus Christ he says if you don't control your tongue you're fooling

yourself and your religion is worthless but then in chapter 3 which is our

focus passage this morning in verses 1 through 12 he gives us this whole

passage about controlling the tongue and read this with me this morning dear

brothers and sisters not many of you should become teachers in the church for

we who teach will be judged more strictly indeed we all make many

mistakes amen for if we could control our tongues we would be perfect and could

also control ourselves in every other way 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 and even though the winds are strong

in the same way the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches but a

tiny spark can set a great forest on fire and among all the parts of the

body the tongue is a flame of fire it is a whole world of wickedness corrupting

your entire body it can set your whole life on fire for it is set on fire by

hell itself people contain all kinds of animals birds reptiles fish but no one

can tame the tongue it is a restless and evil full of deadly poison sometimes it

praises our Lord and father and sometimes it curses those who have been made in

the image of God and so blessings and cursing come pouring out of the same

mouth surely my brothers and sisters this is not right does a spring of water

bubble out of both fresh water and bitter water does a fig tree produce

olives or a grapevine produce figs no you can't draw fresh water from a salty

spring strong that's tough it's a point number one this morning let's talk

about this controlling the tongue chapter 1 verse 26 says if you don't

control the tongue you're fooling yourself and your religion is worthless

but verse 8 says no one can't control the tongue that makes a lot of sense

right what you love stuff like that many times people read the Bible and we

read it at surface level and we look at these these two statements and we say

man like this is contradicting itself this is frustrating I'm not doing this

I'm not even gonna worry about this because in one sense he says yes one

sense he says no which one is it but our God created us he formed us he formed our

mouth and he formed the tongue within our mouth the thing that is a whole world

of evil that has the potential to set your life on fire God created that he

completely understands the power that is within it and the wickedness that it

has the potential to become and in this it's very important for for us to

understand this morning that it's not talking about our ability to control

our tongue because the truth is is that we don't have the ability or the strength

to do anything we are weak at best but through God all things are possible and

so when you start talking about controlling the tongue it's not the

fact that you should be controlling your tongue out of your own strength but the

fact that as believers in Christ we are called to live in submission to Christ

and be in submission to the Holy Spirit and allow the Holy Spirit to fill us and

empower us and through the power of the Spirit our tongues can be controlled they

can be bridled they can be rutted despite the wind that blows or the

currents that pull that it can be steered in the direction that God wants

it to go through the power of his spirit in Isaiah chapter 6 I think it's

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

verse 5 Isaiah has this this amazing encounter with God where the Lord gives

him this vision and he's in heaven and he's standing before God in his throne

room and he sees the Lord and his presence and how his robe filled filled

the temple full of his glory and Isaiah in this moment said I am doomed it's all

over I'm doomed for I'm a sinful man and look at what condemns him he says I'm a

sinful man for I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among the people of unclean

lips and Isaiah who's a man of God he's a prophet of God he's been delivered

the message of God to the people of Israel for years at this time and he

finally stands before God and the thing that is in his heart in his mind that he

knows that is condemning him has been the words that has come from his mouth his

lips are unclean the Spirit of God is powerful enough to tame it and to

cleanse it because what you see with Isaiah is is that God sends one of his

angels over and he takes one of the calls from the altar and he puts it on

his mouth and he cleanses him and he purifies them he says now you can go

and you can give my message to the people of Israel because I've cleaned

you and I've taken your sin away we don't have the ability to control it we

don't have the ability to tame it but the Spirit of God does and you can't be

surprised to not be able to control what's coming out of your mouth if you're

not living in submission to the Spirit of God because he's the only one who can

do it the words that come out of our mouth are just a revelation of what

we're truly serving for serving ourselves we're serving the world we're

serving the Lord in Galatians chapter 5 verse 22 and 23 Paul writes and says

Galatians 5:22

but the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives he talks about

love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self

control and there is no law against these things and it's not just a matter

of producing these things in our life like you're doing these physical things

you're doing acts for other people but it also very much encompasses our words

because think about what a tongue spews forth without love without love a tongue

spews forth hatred without joy a tongue spews forth bitterness without peace our

tongue spews forth doubt and fear without patience our tongue spews forth

frustration without kindness our tongue spews forth anger without goodness our

tongue spews evil without faithfulness our tongue spews betrayal gossip and

division and without gentleness our tongue spews harshness and without

self-control our tongue spews against our will. It does. I don't know if you've ever

been in that situation in your life where something comes up and you just say

something before you even think about it you just said it and then you're in

trouble and then you got to go back and you got to apologize. You got to mend

fences and you got to patch things back up. That's tough and we say it before we

think about it and the Holy Spirit gives us the fruits of the spirit and it gives

us victory in many parts of our lives and one of the things that you see in

verse 2 of our focus passion says if you can control the tongue you can control

every other part of your body and become perfect. But you can't do that on your

home. I can't do that on my own. We can only do that through the power of the

spirit and one of the things that we can see is is the ability to have self-control

with our words is a great indication that we have self-control in many other

aspects of our life. It's so much easier to say something than it is to do

something, right? People say a lot of things they don't do half of what they

say. Our words are a great reflection of whether or not the Holy Spirit lives

within us and is in control and if we can have victory with our tongue we can

have victory in many other aspects of our life. Point number two, it's a small

part with great power. Going back to this whole analogy of the bridal and

the bit in the horse's mouth, the small rudder on a ship and how these small

things can control big and powerful things. I mean I like boats I don't I

don't own a boat I don't really have a desire to own a boat but I'm fascinated

with things like aircraft carriers and cargo ships like I'm kind of a nerd and

so like I watch documentaries on that. Hannah loves it and for me the idea that

you could have something that weighs so much the fact that it can float by

itself but also you can put like 20 planes on it. Like I just thousands upon

thousands of pounds of grease and food and 5,000 crew members running this

basically an entire city within a ship and then a cargo container that can hold

millions of pounds of cargo and not sink. That is an amazing thing and to

think about the the sheer massive size of those things and then when you look

in proportion to that thing and look at the rudder in which steers it and

maneuvers it through the water it is absolutely amazing something so small can

guide something so large and that's what James is saying that our tongues are to

our life. Your tongue whether you realize it or not is a bit for a bridle in your

mouth that is guiding you in different directions. It's guiding you to different

things whether you realize it or not it's a rudder that's steering your body

and your life and your path in certain directions and if you don't believe me

think about the people that you know who just say whatever they want to say.

You ever been around those people? They're fun. I mean like sometimes we

appreciate it but most of the time it's pretty annoying right? Like they say

whatever and then they get real proud about it. I don't care I just say

whatever's on my mind and like okay that's cool. They don't have many friends.

They usually don't last long in the workplace. You watch people like that they

bounce around from job to job. Nobody wants to work with them. Nobody wants to

hang out with them. Nobody wants to be friends with them. Most of the time if

they do end up getting married the person they're married to is just a saint

and don't want to sin by getting a divorce. Like it's think about it. People

will say all kinds of stuff and it guides our lives. It controls and affects

so many aspects of our lives by the words that we say. In verse 6 says among

all the parts of the body the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of

wickedness corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire for

it is set on fire by hell itself. That is should be fearful. One of the biggest

things that I struggled with early on in my walk with Christ was just not

knowing when to keep my mouth shut and just not say it. You know it took it

takes a long time for the Spirit to work and move in our lives and and for

those thoughts and those words not to even come up to be said but then like

especially early on just learning like sometimes it's just it's not beneficial

in any way to even say it and you could be completely right and you could say

exactly the right thing and it not be received and there's wisdom in the

Spirit there's fruits in the Spirit there's all kinds of things that God can

save us from within our own desires our own temptations the own words that come

from the depths of our heart that come up out of our mouth God wants to save

us and spare us from those things but we have to be willing to let it we have

to be willing to surrender when you think about when God created everything

how did he create it he spoke it you ever questioned how powerful words are go to

Genesis chapter 1 and start reading how in the beginning God said and there it

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

was God did not do anything to bring forth creation he spoke creation into being

there's power in words and this morning it's really important for us to remind

ourselves that we are made in the image of God now I'm not saying this to fluff

you up this morning or to give any of us a big head in any sort of way but we

are made in the image of God we are made more like God than any other thing that

has been created and because of that there's a great responsibility in our

lives in our existence a huge calling that's on each and every single one of

us and when you think about God speaking things into existence you and I

do not have the same ability as God we can't speak things into creation but

God's Word very much says that the words that come from our mouth can bring

death or they can bring life they can bring pain or they can bring healing and

so your words are powerful when God created Adam and even he put him in the

Garden of Eden what did he do with them he came down in the cool of the

evening every day and he walked with them and talked with them the whole

reason we were created was to have fellowship with our mouths fellowship

and communion with God your mouth was created to fellowship and commune with

your Creator it was not meant to tell people what you think it was not meant

to set people in their place it was not meant to just word vomit all over

whatever it is and whether you're proud about it or ashamed of it that's not

what it was meant for it was meant to glorify God it was meant to bring a

relationship for us to God our tongue has great power it has the power of evil

and it has the power of good and and James says it's a world within itself

like your whole body is a whole thing but the tongue that very small thing in

your mouth is a world within itself full of evil and if it's not controlled by the

spirit if it's not led by the spirit it has the ability to set everything on

fire and bring destruction to everything in your life if you don't believe me

just keep on speaking I can't tell you how many relationships and people I've

hurt and things that I've damaged over the years by just not having the Holy

Spirit in control of the words that come out of my mouth

Proverbs 18 verse 21 says wives words satisfy like a good meal the right

Proverbs 18:21

words bring satisfaction the tongue can bring death or life and those who

love the talk will reap the consequences of it there's a consequence to everything

that we say and we have to reap those consequences whether they're good or

whether they're bad point number three last one the tongue has one purpose as we

said before God created us to have fellowship with him and he came and he

walked and he talked with Adam and Eve your mouth's purpose is to glorify God

and in the calling of being a believer in Jesus Christ as we glorify God we're

also called to build others up and strengthen them and not tear them down

and destroy them in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 29 Paul writes and says don't use

Ephesians 4:29

foul or abusive language let everything you say be good and helpful so that

your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them we just spent the

last month talking about time and how valuable time was we do not have time

to use idle words without thought it's a dangerous game to play for the amount

the most precious resource that you have is time and the most powerful thing

that you have to give to God and to give others are the words that come

from our mouth and to waste time and to waste those words with anger and hatred

and division and joking or or whatever it may be we only have so much time and

you only have so many words and you only have so many opportunities to influence

the people that you're you're surrounded by and students you're moving into a

situation over the next school year where you are going to be surrounded by

the people who are sitting within you in those classes for 40 hours a week you

have great access to their lives great opportunities to speak words of

encouragement and truth and guidance to them rather than speaking down to them

or in frustration teachers what you say will impact those students for the rest

of their lives they will remember the things that you tell they're not going

to remember what you teach them for the most part but they'll remember the

things you say to them you start making it personal they'll remember it

everything that we say matters and we don't have time to waste it you know we

talked about time being our most valuable resource like it's a currency

like we have to trade it off to get other things and so many aspects of life

but your words are currency too you ever notice how the more people talk the less

people listen and the people who don't talk that much whenever they do finally

pop up and say something people like what they'll listen to them because the

more scare something is the more valuable bit it becomes your words are a

currency your words have value you will determine the value of the words that

come from your mouth you will determine how meaningful those words are whether

they're gold or whether they're dirt whether they're healing and life-giving

or whether they're polluting and they're destructive you will determine that not

by your own power and strength but by the power of the Holy Spirit and the

access that you give it into your life so I asked you this morning is your

tongue conquering you or are you letting the Holy Spirit conquer your tongue is

your tongue corrupting you or is your tongue glorifying God and lifting others

up that's only something that you can answer and even in the midst of the words

that we say what we write what we text what we type the pictures we send the

emotions that we give when we say things it's all communicating something and it

is extremely extremely powerful and only you know where that's coming from

and the access that you need to give the Holy Spirit in order to change it

let's pray father God I thank you so much for the opportunity to come here

today and Lord as we talk about this just this past week Lord I was extremely

convicted because I said things that I should have said and Lord I talked to my

kids in ways that I should not have talked to them this past week talk to my

wife in ways I should not have talked this week and so Lord even preparing for

this Lord I have been convicted and God I prayed that every one of us this

morning would allow your Holy Spirit to come into our lives and to cleanse us

to be like Isaiah and admit that we are a people of unclean lips and we live

saving God who has the power to cleanse us and then give us the power and the

authority to speak for you and to deliver your word and your truth in your

message thank you for that Lord none of us in this room are perfect in any way

but Lord we pray that your Holy Spirit would come into our lives that you would

bring victory over our words and Lord that you would help tame our tongue

because when it's controlled or to every other part of our life and her body will

be controlled and we can be perfect in you or thank you for that promise and I

pray that we would cash in on that and capitalize on it this morning Jesus we

love you and we thank you we ask all this in your name amen you're dismissed

thank you