This week's topic, Subjects Christians Avoid. We're going to talk about words, speech. You might have gotten that idea from the scripture reading this morning, but words mean things. Now, so far the subjects Christians avoid, as we've talked about these, we've covered either subjects we sometimes think are too personal or too controversial, and so we kind of avoid them, or in the case of fasting, for example, we just don't know enough about them, and so we kind of avoid the topic. Today we're going to talk about some of the things that we might say. We don't necessarily avoid this in teaching, and we really can't avoid this subject in our everyday lives, for the most part. But I believe that what we avoid is being honest with ourselves about our wrong speech. We just do. We give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, or we don't always just wrestle down the kind of speaking that we are doing. In our fellowship time, Larry Sanders has been talking through a very deliberate examination of what it means to be a growing Christian, including being honest about our sin. There's no way to avoid crossing into that subject during our worship time, but often the Lord plans that they kind of coalesce, they come together, they coordinate, they complement one another. And I believe that that's kind of what's happening this morning. But that also means that if you can be, be here for the first hour. because there's some great things that we're looking at there. So what we're going to key on is not, you know, in its entirety, but we are going to start with the general. Words that mean things, the first thing we're going to be talking about, and things that we avoid talking about, is corrupt words. Ephesians 4.29 says this, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers. Corrupt, in general, means rotten or worthless. So if we think of corrupt, we can take a picture of the idea of opening up our refrigerator and discovering something that has definitely gone bad. We've all done it. Maybe for you, it's the 15 butter containers that you have in there that don't have any butter in them. I don't know. But bottom line is this, when you open up the fridge, you know something is corrupted, right? So Paul is challenging The Christians in Ephesus here to stop saying things that are corrupted by sin. That's a very general statement. We will see later in the context, this same context in Ephesians, Paul gets more specific to the Ephesian church about their choice of words. But for now, let's categorize corrupt words in a general way. Corrupt words include gossip, slander, as talking about people for the purpose of harming them in some way. It also includes speaking in anger, being critical, or saying things that are intended to hurt or diminish another person. There's all different ways, like I say, that we can give examples of and define those things, but there are several scriptures that categorize these kinds of words. Ephesians chapter 4, following this specific verse that we looked at, 429, says this. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit. You know what? Let's just do this. Let's make sure that we put it together. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, building somebody else up, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you." Now, as we proceed, I'm just going to be very transparent and tell you that we're not looking at the positive so much today, okay? We are going to be concentrating on the negative. I usually try to have a little bit more of a balance, but today I just want us to understand that in 1 Peter, in James and Colossians, there are similar lists. Lists of the negative ways that we can use words. This is that whole idea of corrupted language. Right? If we can kind of use a more basic term, it stinks. There's something wrong with it. It's off. Why? Because it's based in sinfulness. Proverbs 12.18 kind of demonstrates a little bit of an illustration of this. It says, there is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health. So there's a graphic description here of the harm that words can cause to another person. We're all capable and have probably all said things that are intended to hurt. And sometimes we can hurt someone very badly with what we say. Now, again, like I say, this is not something that we don't deal with as far as understanding it and even having to admit it sometimes or whatever, but it's that consistent wrestling down. It's really dealing with what's coming out of our mouths. There's also the idea of inappropriate speech. The first one is obscene talk. Again, I mentioned this is going to be in the same context. If we move into Ephesians 5, just a little bit, it says this. For fornication, that's any type of improper sexual activity, and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be named among you as is fitting for saints. So that's talking about sexual sins and wanting what somebody else has, which is part of that, but not completely. But then look at what it says here. Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks." So the first thing that's mentioned here is filthiness. This is obscene talk, speech that is coarse or explicit, rude or offensive speech. The scriptures are the primary standard for defining obscene language, but society also gives us some guidelines many times, right? You shouldn't be saying that. That's not appropriate. That's not right. But here's the problem. Sometimes our culture accepts and even celebrates obscenity under the guise of the freedom of speech. And what our culture actually considers offensive can actually be what God has commanded us to speak. Well, you're telling me that my behavior is sinful? Now, I'm not talking about going around wagging our finger and, you know, yelling at everybody. I'm just simply saying when we're confronted with something and we have to say, look, this is the truth here, right? And if it's not culturally acceptable, then we can be told what you're saying is what? Rude. It's obscene. It's offensive. So we have to say, just because culture has some standards, that's not the standard. The standard is the word of God. But it's also the standard that we're supposed to be living by. Is it possible? And we're gonna talk about this when it comes to other areas as well, but is it possible that maybe, and by the way, I do remember being in high school. I actually remember being in elementary school, Allen Elementary, which is now, it's a park, right? That's how old I am. And cussing, using terrible language was common in my third grade class. Yeah, I know. Some of you guys are like, what? Yeah. We were rough at Allen, man. Alligators. Allen Alligator. Anyway, you get the idea. And that went all the way through school. Maybe as a student, you kind of speak the way your friends speak. Maybe some of you, it's the same way at work. You see where I'm going? Culture doesn't make it acceptable. Our speech has to be different, we have to examine what we're speaking and do something about it. Then there's what is called in the passage foolish talk. Neither filthiness nor foolish talking. This is conversation about foolish things. Not small talk, not conversations about things that may or may not have a spiritual dimension. This isn't referring to lighthearted or even funny conversations. So it's not like we were supposed to be serious all the time and you know, don't ever, you know, that's not what we're talking about here. This is the kind of talk that crosses the line into sinful foolishness. All right. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you some examples because some of these might actually surprise you. We've been going through several aspects of Proverbs on Wednesday nights. And really what it is, it's a comparison, a lot of Proverbs, not all of it, but a lot of it is a comparison of wise living and wise thinking and even wise speaking. And then the opposite of that is foolish living. and everything that goes along with it. And when you start to show the comparisons, what it really comes down to is the wise person is the godly person and the foolish person is one who doesn't have any regard for what God wants you to do. So sinfulness in and of itself is foolishness. So look at some of the types of speech that we're talking about in relation to foolish talk. Proverbs 10.8 describes it as a pratting fool. Pratting fool will fall. Okay, so there's a problem that's going on here, right? The mouth of fools pours forth foolishness. So pratting, that's an old word, but it means the idea of ranting or droning on in a foolish way. It's not someone who's maybe a little more talkative. That's not what we're talking about. Again, it goes back to foolishness is coming out of their mouths. And the mouth of a fool pours forth foolishness. It just comes out of them. Why? Because that's what's in their hearts. Proverbs 29.11, a fool vents all his feelings. Right? He just lets you have it. He gets it all out. Or she. Proverbs 18.2, a fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion, regardless of what you think about it, regardless of whether it's right or wrong. And based upon the fact that this person is described as a fool, what would their opinion be? Foolish. The lips of fools bring them strife and their mouths invite a beating. Folks, you can't get much more graphic than that. Foolish talk causes trouble. Now, we can probably all remember at some point when we were younger, maybe I can, where I was kind of wiping off my bottom lip saying, that was kind of stupid. Right? That's what we're talking about. Saying and doing dumb things, foolish things. and then having a consequence. And then Proverbs 30, verse 32, if you have been foolish in exalting yourself, or if you have devised evil, put your hand over your mouth. Isn't that interesting? So here we have what kind of behavior? Boasting and making evil plans. And the advice is part of wising up is just stop talking. But you see the kind of character we're looking at. The bottom line is foolish talk isn't just silly talk or someone talking nonsense even. Foolish talk is harmful. Foolish talk is harmful to people around them. It could be harmful to themselves. And then this passage that we've been looking at talks about crude humor. Neither coarse jesting." This may seem obvious on the surface, we call it making dirty jokes, but it's not just the obvious. Some crude humor goes a little deeper than that. Sinful desires of the heart or things that shouldn't be said are often couched in humor to make them less sinful or seem less offensive. In other words, if we can chuckle at it, it's kind of like that honey that helps the medicine go down, only it's not good medicine. It just makes sin more palatable if we can laugh it off, right? So friends, we need to guard against either saying or listening to humor used to encourage sin or make it more acceptable. Now, these different kinds of speech aren't even supposed to be identified among believers. Do you see that there? This isn't even something that we can be able to say that any of us are doing. So as we're thinking about this, Again, there's some examination that needs to take place here. Are we maybe sometimes succumbing to the culture around us or even to our own selfish desires? And we'll talk more about this in a minute. But here's the other way that we can have the wrong kind of speech, misusing God's name. When we talk about words meaning things, the name of God means everything. In Exodus 20 verse 7, which is part of the Ten Commandments, it says, You shall not take the name of your Lord God in vain. And I'll explain that in a minute. For the Lord God will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Now this mainly involved falsely using God's name to make a promise or validate a person's words. This is what Jesus was referring to in Matthew chapter 5 when he said this. Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord. For I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king." Let me just summarize this. This is part of what Jesus was saying about several different subjects, but what he's saying is this. When you are trying to validate what you're saying by swearing, by giving promises, or giving your word along with something else, then, you know, it's like, you know, I swear upon my mother's grave, right? You ever hear that in the movies, right? You know, different things like that. Well, that's basically saying, you know, okay, I need to validate what I'm telling you. Well, a lot of times, as you can see here, it would be related to God himself. What if you didn't follow through with what you said? You just used God's name. you invoked his name in a vain or empty way, a meaningless way. So that was one of the primary things we're talking about. But as we think about it here, God gave this third commandment a very general meaning to include disrespectful, diminishing, or empty use of his name. Culturally, a person's name was directly associated with the person's character. We don't really have that as much today. And in some cultures we might, but not so much in our culture, but a person's name was directly related to their character. Now, sometimes a family might say this, you know, the last name, okay, my last name is Kiger, you know, don't go out and, you know, mess around, do something stupid. And what? Bring shame on the Kiger name. Right? So we do use it a little bit today, but the point is this, is that when we're kind of throwing around God's name in an empty fashion it really does diminish him and the commandment comes with a negative promise, God will hold us accountable for using his name in any inappropriate, demeaning, or empty way. Now, we've discussed this on several occasions. If we're a follower of Christ and we have placed our faith in him and we know that we're forgiven and all those things, then we know we're not going to be paying for our sins after this life is over. All right? But just for a moment, can you imagine, out of all the things that someone could have done to offend God, They're standing before God, not as far as judging their good works, but now being judged and being sentenced to eternal hell. Because every person is going to stand before God. And having to account for using now who they recognize as the God of this universe cursing his name over and over and over again. I don't want to be in that person's shoes. At the same time as believers this is something that we need to be very careful of. And we talked about joking before. Sometimes people, you know, can say jokes and throw God's name into a joke. And, you know, I started to get real nervous about some of those things. We need to be careful. We need to be careful how his name rolls off of our tongue because it represents him every time we use it. Then the other area that we need to be careful of is what we will call idle words. Matthew 12, 36 says this, Now again, we're looking at Jesus' words here. What I want to do first is consider the context of this verse. And so if you'll turn with me to Matthew chapter 12, Matthew 12, I'm going to read for you verses 22-37. It's going to take a little bit of time, but I want you to see how this gets developed as far as speech is concerned. Matthew 12, beginning in verse 22. Then one brought to him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute, He healed him so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. And all the multitudes were amazed and said, could this be the son of David? And that was talking about the line of David, the Messiah who was going to come as David's son. Now, when the Pharisees heard it, In other words, heard what the people were saying, they said, this fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons. And that was just, basically he was saying Satan, all right, the leader of the demons. But Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. And every city or house divided against itself will not stand. Satan casts out Satan. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will this kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges. But I cast out demons by the Spirit of God. Surely the kingdom of God has come upon you." Now, we're not going to be dealing with demons and all those other things today, but the point is this. He, Jesus, was doing everything that he did by the power of the Holy Spirit. He did the will of the Father by the power of the Spirit. Just in review how are we supposed to be living our lives? The will of the Father by the power of the Spirit. Or how can one enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man? Then he will plunder his house. He who is not with me is against me and he who does not gather with me scatters abroad. Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but except the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or the age to come." Now, again, I want to pause here. We're not going to go through an exhaustive thing here. Bottom line is this. This is an extremely specific context. The unpardonable sin, as it's called often, would have to be Jesus on the earth doing work through the Holy Spirit. Well, that's not happening anymore. All right? You understand that? Jesus isn't here. He's risen. When He comes back, He's not going to be doing things in the power of the Spirit anymore. He is the risen Son of God. He's not submitting himself to the flesh. You with me? So now let's move on. Because here's where it gets interesting. Jesus isn't trying to win any popularity contests here, right? You den of poisonous snakes. That's what he's calling them. How can you, being evil, speak good things? Look at where it comes from, right? Look at what he goes to, speech. And then what does he say? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you'll be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." So now, bringing this back into context, we know that Jesus had just healed a demon-possessed man who had been blind and mute. The religious leaders of the day accused Jesus of doing his miracle through the power of Satan. Jesus not only made it clear to them that that is not how spiritual warfare works, but that they had just blasphemed the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit. Now again, there's a lot more we could say about that, but I wanted to bring us up to speed here. So just like we can identify a tree by its fruit, the words a person produces comes from who they are. Good words come from good hearts and evil words come from evil hearts. Speech is a heart issue. Speech is a heart issue. Can unsaved people, people who have not placed their faith in Christ, people who God has not made alive spiritually, can they say kind things? Can they say good things? Yes, of course they can. But their words will prove whether or not they are spiritually alive. It's going to come out. And of course, Christians can say some really ugly and sinful things, but our words will affirm in whom we have believed. But again, don't get... We can say a lot of words, but ultimately it's the heart. Sometimes, and you may have been confronted with people like this, you hear the words, you hear the words, you hear the words, and all of a sudden the actions come, or then different words come, And it's like, oh, I think I just got a window into their heart, right? That doesn't mean we judge people on one thing that they say, but it does depend on what they're saying, okay? So what am I saying in all of this? Is that it's not just behavior modification, folks. It's not just behavior modification. It is actually digging back, digging deep into where our words are coming from and saying okay what do I value, what matters to me, am I going to place myself under the authority of Christ and do the will of God in my speech or not. So Matthew basically is talking here about idle words. I'm sorry, Jesus was in Matthew. He's basically saying that even idle words that each person speaks will be a part of the judgment. Idle has the idea of careless. These are the words that we speak without thought. They can be said in passing or mumbled under our breath. We may often describe them as words that we really don't even mean, you know, they just kind of come out. Like when we say something thoughtless or hurt someone's feelings and we say, oh, I didn't mean it like that, right? We didn't mean it like that or we didn't mean to let it slip without the right mental editing before we said it. But even what we think of as meaningless, Jesus said, can be very revealing about what is in our hearts. And that's the point of that. In other words, there is no minor speech as God listens. Words matter. Words mean things. The message to the one who rejects Christ and his salvation is that even seemingly innocent, meaningless talk can reveal your lack of faith. Listen to yourself, but don't deceive yourself. Listen to the speech that you are saying. For those of us who follow Christ, even speech you put no thought behind matters and can reveal what is really in your heart and result in losing rewards from your Lord and Savior. Because it's not gonna be just what you say, right? It's gonna go back to what was in your heart. So where does this bring us this morning? Obviously this is not an exhaustive list of all the things that we can say and do, but it's an angle on, I believe, some of the things that we tend to let slide a little bit. Or sometimes we're at least tempted to let slide. Or we consider not that big of a deal. Even when we're talking about just those idle words that slip out. Jesus made it clear that our heart is the source of what we say. So what we say reflects who we are. We need to be careful not to get caught up in trendy Christian sayings, false religious traditions, or co-opted worldly philosophy. Let me illustrate just one thing. And folks, I'm not trying to pick, all right? But I want to use this example to make a couple of different points, and it's this. And by the way, if you've ever used this with a few emojis or something on Facebook, okay, I'm not trying to embarrass anybody, and I'm not trying to judge anybody, okay? But just hear me out. Sending prayers your way. Have you ever seen that? Maybe you've used it, maybe you haven't. Like I say, I'm not asking. There are several versions of this, and I get the basic meaning, right? It's supposed to be praying for you. But you will not find a biblical reference anywhere about sending prayers to people. This is not intercession. This is incantation. like speaking magic words or beaming our own positive energy at a problem or a need someone has. So it's like this. Here's us, and here's the person, and here's God. And we say, hey, sending prayers your way. At the very best, it's a ricochet. where we kind of send them God's way, but they kind of bounce off God and make it spiritual and then go to that person. Do we send prayers to people? No. When we use this kind of language or things like this, what are we communicating to the unsaved world? What are we communicating to people around us? I mean, you know, like I say, folks, my purpose here today is not just to be mean, but there's all kinds of things we can talk about here. We can talk about how we even sometimes talk about angels. It's not healthy. Here's the point. When we say something like this, we are absolutely taking God out of the equation. We're taking glory from him. And we're not even being honest. Unless that's what our prayers are about, it's just, you know, positive energy thoughts. If we're actually going to God and interceding for Him, our prayers go to God. They stay with God. God is not obligated to do anything that we ask or even, dare I say, demand. But instead, in His providence, in His good pleasure, He uses our prayer life, and we don't understand that, and he affects that answer to somebody else. So, folks, this is not about whether or not we pray. God says we're supposed to pray. Jesus, his disciples give him credit. They said, Lord, teach us to pray, and he taught them to pray. So the point isn't that we don't pray. The point isn't that, oh, God knows everything, so who cares? What does it matter, right? No. The point is, is that it's phrases like this that are kind of empty, right? This is idle talk. But boy, does it communicate something even to the point where even though we're not using God's name here, right, if we were to mix in there whatever, the point is we're taking either glory away from God or we're using his name in vain. And so there's a lot of things that come to bear in this little phrase and again like I say we can use other examples but what's the point? We need to engage our brains. There is nothing redeeming about this when it comes to actually praying for someone. So as we talk about our speech I have a verse I'm going to share in a minute but I just want to ask, am I being too picky here? Is God expecting the impossible to just guilt and frustrate us? I don't believe that that is what his purpose is. We need to take the time to examine our words but also examine the source of what we say and how we say it and why we say it. So instead of us being concerned about how we're being received or checking our words to the point where, like I say, it's just a matter of behavioral modification, right? If I just change what I say, then it'll be okay. No, instead, I want us to work hard at determining, making sure that what we say brings glory to Christ. I think a lot of times our actions, they're easier to manage. And I'm going to throw this verse up to you that's going to prove that. It came from our scripture reading this morning, but James 3.2 says this, for we all stumble in many things. What's James saying? We're going to sin, right? If anyone does not stumble in word, if we don't sin in what we say, he's a perfect man. That means to be spiritually mature. It doesn't mean perfect as in they don't do anything wrong. It simply means if you can watch what you say, if you can control your mouth, which is what? Controlling your heart. It means being under control is what's in here so that what comes out is glorifying to God, that's a mature person, able to bridle the whole body. When we are controlling our speech, which means that we're actually controlling our whole body, right? That is holy, righteous living. That is bringing glory to God. That means that we're not going to say foolish things. It means that we're, and again, we all stumble, okay? That means that we're not going to say things that are demeaning to other people, etc. That means that we're not going to say things that diminish who God is. That means that even the little things that slip out aren't those little things that slip out that give that brief window of, hmm, your heart isn't where it's supposed to be. But instead, our words are expressing the consistency of a heart that is dedicated to God himself. When Jesus spoke to these Pharisees, right, the religious leaders of the day, I mean, he blasted them. But he attributed their spirituality. Look at this guy. Come on. He can't be doing this for the power of God. It's got to be from Satan. Right? Not only did he call him on that, but he basically said those kind of words come from an evil heart. Why? Because they're evil words. They were wrong about him. They were tearing him down because they didn't want to lose their place. Because they wanted to elevate themselves. That sound familiar? It's probably happened to you before. Maybe you've even said things like that. But the whole point is this, Jesus brings it down to what it's really about. It's a matter of the heart, right? Now again, we can, to a degree, control what we say, manage, right? It's almost like, what do you call that? Our PR, right? Our public relations out here and what we say and sound good. But eventually what's going to happen? If our heart isn't where it's supposed to be, our words are going to betray us. So even someone who can profess Christ can say all the right words, can even know theological terms, and on and on it goes. But whether or not we're truly a believer is going to come back to the heart and eventually what we say and what we do is going to betray us. So let's be warned, but let's also be challenged. And I do want to end this in a more positive way, which is this. Man, look at what this says here. Really the key to spiritual maturity is having your heart set in such a way that you're not worried about what you're saying. Now, I'm not advocating you just always say what you're thinking. There is, you're supposed to ponder what you're gonna say first, right? But boy, listening helps too. But processing through God's filter is also what's extremely important. So, let's say that you come into a situation And all of a sudden, the words are starting to form. Y'all know you've been there, every one of you, every one of us. There is something that we even covered this morning called temptation. That's an enticement to sin. Now that was applied a little more loosely this morning, but temptation, as far as doing sin, that's an enticement to sin. Temptation is not a sin. So we might have an initial reaction, and we might even have some words that start to form. But guess what? In our hearts, when we wrestle that down, when we gain control of ourself, right? And in our heart, we're like, I don't want to say that. I don't want to fly off the handle. I don't want to sound dismissive. I don't want to say something harmful. I don't want to tear them down to lift myself up. I don't want to brag. I don't know how we can go, right? All those things we talked about. But instead, I'm going to rustle that down and I am going to honor God with what I say. And then we turn around and we say the right thing. Do we just manipulate what came out? Or did we take care of it in our heart first? You see where I'm going? It doesn't mean that we're not gonna have that temptation go through our, that selfish desire come about. Because they didn't speak to me just right, therefore I get to not speak to them just right. Come on. It happens. But instead, we spiritually, we rattle that bad boy down. We gain control and we say, no, I need to honor God in what I'm gonna say. Now, I doubt that you're gonna have that detailed of a conversation with yourself. And if it comes out and you start talking to yourself, they're gonna think you're nuts, okay? But you get the idea. The point is, is that as we're trained, as we are becoming more and more mature, this was gonna come out naturally. We could even say supernaturally, why? Because that's where our heart is. That's where our heart is. And folks, I'm just being very transparent this morning. I had to tell my wife, I'm just not in the greatest of mood. I wasn't, I didn't, I don't know if I said or did anything wrong, but I felt kind of, and I think it's, I'm not blaming, I'm saying there are reasons. I was in the middle of some kind of dream. I don't know if it was a good or a bad one, but then the alarm went off because of course I lost an hour, right? I'm being serious. I don't do well with this, right? So I'm immediately like, you know, Well, you know, that's that's part of our human weakness. I'm not making excuses. What I'm saying is that doesn't give me the right. To turn around and be rude. OK, that's what I had to wrestle down. And oh, by the way, I don't always win if you know what I mean. So I get it and. I've said this before as I'm talking to you boy, I'm I'm gut punching myself. I'm just being very transparent with you. Our words matter. Our words mean things. Even the things that we don't think mean anything, God takes them into account. Boy, if he thinks that our words are that important and that revealing, and they ultimately reveal our heart, what should we be working on? What should be occupying our thoughts, and then ultimately what kind of words are going to come out. But wouldn't it be great in your family, in your relationships, in this church, if we just were able to, everybody, bring a little bit more maturity to the table, right? Everybody, just begin to mature in this area. Now, of course, Pastor Scott here is just wailing at everybody, right, judging everybody, we're all evil. That's not what I'm saying. I haven't said that. Don't take that away. But what I've said is the mature person, right, the mature person is going to know how to handle his words. Jesus said those words that we're handling are coming from our hearts. So we got to go back there. Let's pray. Heavenly Father some of what we have talked about when it comes to subjects we avoid are not necessarily painful, they're informative and sometimes even very encouraging. This one Lord is probably one that hits us a little bit more personally because we've all even if we say I let something slip that I didn't really want to say. If we're honest with you, we know where it came from. And we know that even though we might not have wanted to say it, we did. We didn't want anybody to hear us. So Lord, as we consider that, I pray that we will not just examine our hearts and not even just walk away feeling maybe like we're not measuring up. but that we would see that there's some blessings, there's some promises, there's some alternatives to speaking in the wrong ways because our righteous words matter too. They matter a whole lot. Just like some of these foolish things that people can say can be harmful and hurtful, words can also heal. and we can be an encouragement and we can speak the truth in love and bring to bear the fruit of the spirit along with our speech. And again Lord it comes back to the heart. So I pray that we'll examine what we say and how we say it but that ultimately drives us back into what am I thinking, what motivates me. which then drives us back to you. In Christ's name, Amen.