My Stupid Mouth - According to Code
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Big Idea: The tongue is a deadly weapon so we should surrender it to Jesus.
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Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the the internet!
My name is Charlie Kae and I’m the lead pastor at Grace Empire in Wesley Chapel, Florida and I would like to welcome everyone to Grace Empire online.
*Our vision is help restore hurt people through an intimate relationship with Jesus X.*
Everyone is welcome at Grace Empire, but if you were to ask us what our focus is, we started Grace Empire to reach the non-affiliated, gnostics, and non-believers. If you or someone you know has been hurt by religion or has been burned out by doing church, Grace Empire fits a unique role for those that are looking to reengage their faith or find an accepting community.
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But before we continue, our online disclaimer.
Grace Empire Online focus on giving you sermons - so without a doubt - this is an incomplete version of church.
As we move forward with this online church thing, I wanted to urge you and remind you that online church should never replace the community you get from your local church.
We love and are so very honored that you tuned in with us today and by no means am I saying this to guilt trip you, hurt you or make you feel inadequate in anyway. We know everyone is on a different journey with God and the fact that some of you are watching is a huge step and I applaud you for that.
At Grace Empire, our goal is to keep Jesus at the center of everything we do and a big part of that is understanding our place within the church. It’s not just that you need people (which you do); but it’s that people need you.
But as I said, the online church is an incomplete version of what God intended the church to be. The local church also gives you a place to:
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At GXE we teach that we give to give, not give to get. We give our tithes and offerings because we are thankful to God for providing for our needs. It is also to acknowledge that we live, work, and are sustained because He allows us to be. And because of the advancements in technology giving is an easy one.
You can give online through our website www.graceempire.com, or via text by texting the words GraceEmpire to the number 77977 and then follow the link texted to you.
You can either do that now, or at the end of the message.
Alright with all that out the way…lets get to Jesus shall we?
Pray
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We are in week three of our series about using our words more carefully called My Stupid Mouth. In week one we opened the series by learning the importance of being quick to listen and slow to speak. We learned that listening first and speaking a late second is the key to living right with each other, rather than being right at each other. Because ultimately that’s what God wants for us, to be right with each other.
Last week we found out that every single one of us carries an incredibly powerful weapon in our mouths. That the tongue is so powerful, that if left unguarded, it can set our very lives on fire. We need to keep constant guard over our tongues and our mouths because as we found out last week, that there is no taming it! That is why we ended the same way we started in week one with being:
Quick to listen and slow to speak.
So lets all say this together now just so we can get our heads and mouths in the right place.
Be quick to listen, and slow to speak.
Very good.
I don’t know if this has been helping you, I hope it has, as you have been living life for the past couple of weeks. I know for me, this has been something that I have actively been working on. Whenever I am in a conversation…I have this inner voice in my head saying, be quick to listen, and slow to speak. But some days are easier than others.
The other day, my wife and I arrived at dinner time with no desire to cook anything. So we did what we normally do when you don’t want to cook, we decided to head to our favorite - favorite because its cheap - taco place…Taco Bell. This is the TB in New Tampa, on BBD, right off of the highway. Anyways, we gather the whole family, pile into the car and head our way to get some din din. We arrive at head into the store, and the store is empty. Not a single soul inside. I don’t even see a worker behind a counter. So we head over to one of those large menu tablets to input our order digitally. After punching in our order, sliding our card, and finalizing our transaction, one of the workers there - yells out from somewhere in the store, to NOT order the nacho bell grande. Well shoot…my wife likes the nacho bell grande that it just so happens thats what she ordered. We tell them we already ordered it and paid for it. Turns out the reason that they didnt have the Nacho Bell Grande was because they were out of the trays, the bell grande came on. So they didnt want to give us a refund, so after much hemming and hawing, they decided to solve our problem by putting the nachos into a smaller dish, but with more meat and a ridiculous amount of nacho cheese, I guess to compensate for the lack of nachos. For the nacho aficionados out there, you already see the problem. The proper amount of nacho cheese is important to a well balanced nacho platter, because too little cheese and your just eating dry chips, and too much sauce, and you just get a sopping mess of soggy, soft, tortilla chips…nobody likes soggy chips. The story goes on and this is where I will get to my point. Looking into our bag and it looks like, they messed up one other taco and sorted us a burrito. So we take our receipt up to the counter and after waiting, like ten minutes, the lady shows up and we tell her the problem and she abruptly and immediately says AFTER looking at our receipt, “you didn’t order that.” Did I mention that I had the receipt IN MY HAND as she said that? What do you mean, “I didn’t order that.” Im a pretty patient man, but I was about to go nuclear on this lady. You give me crappy, snack-sized, over saturated nachos, mess up my order, and THEN have the nerve to tell me that I didn’t order what I know I did and have proof for which I am holding in my hand!
So as my hands balled up into a fist, I could hear that familiar inner monologue...”be quick to listen, and slow to speak.” And because there was nothing to quickly listen too (it’s not like we we’re in a dialogue or anything), I just choose to be slow to speak, but not without first, muttering a few choice words under my breathe.
The point is that, being quick to listen and slow to speak is difficult even from the pastor preaching it. It is something we all need to practice every single day. My tongue was ready to spew all sorts of deadly poison on my girl at Taco Bell, but in this battle, Jesus won out. But I tell you, the battles never end and it is so important that we continue to talk about and talk through being quick to listen and slow to speak which we will continue today.
For the past two weeks we have been hearing from James, but this week we will hear from a guy named the Apostle Paul. For those that are being introduced to Paul for the first time, let me give you a bit of a refresher. The Apostle Paul was first introduced to us in the book of Acts and was originally called Saul of Tarsus. Tarsus is where he was from and Saul/Paul was a brilliant Jewish pharisee - pharisee means teacher of the law - who was on the fast track to becoming one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful man, in the Jewish religious system, which is to say one of the most powerful men in the Jewish culture period. Saul was known for hating Christians, and made his personal mission and political stance to bring down and persecute, even execute Christians. This became Saul’s mission and was hell bent on accomplishing it. But something extraordinary happens to Saul, in the road to Damascus, Saul is blinded by a light and has a vision of the resurrected Jesus, whom Saul was persecuting. Saul has a supernatural encounter with the living Jesus and promptly changes course and instead of persecuting Christians, decides to devote the rest of his life as a Christian, to evangelizing more people into Christians.
Paul will travel all throughout the mediterranean, converting Gentiles into Christianity. He will help establish a church within the area, and travel to the next city to do the same thing. He will continue to disciple these churches from afar by writing letters to them, and these letters will make up the bulk of what we know as the New Testament. We are going to be reading from one of these books / letters today called the book of Ephesians or the letter to the Ephesians, which is the same thing.
So if you have your bibles, you can turn to the right side of your bible and head over to a short letter written by the Apostle Paul, Ephesians. Paul will paint for us a word picture of what to do with our words and how to use them better. Now remember, this book was written TO Christians, so if you consider yourself a believer, this is something you should definitely pay attention too. If you are not a believer, I would still pay attention, because even if you do not believe in the bible or even if you do not live your life by it’s words, what you will hear and read today will help you. See it as good sound advice. It will definitely impact your life if your heart and mind are open to it.
Alright lets go. We are starting in Ephesians 4:17. Now remember Paul is writing to the Gentiles - non Jews - that have left their pagan religion to worship the one and only God, Jesus.
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
Now when Paul says “no longer live as the Gentiles do,” Paul is talking about the way they used to live. Before they became Christians, they lived as everyone else did in that culture. They were a polytheistic culture, meaning that they worshipped many gods, many of them which were local and many of them which had specific ways of worshipping, some involving heavy sacrifice and others involving immoral worship.
18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.
They - So here Paul says “they” which were who the Ephesian church used to be.
Darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God - and Paul will tell us why in a second and this seems really harsh, but hold on.
Because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts - Paul isn’t trying to insult the people here, he is saying this more as an observation rather than a slight. He is saying, the people that you deal with in your culture, do not see the things that you now can see and they don’t see the world the way that you see it now as a Christian. And this is a big deal, let me explain.
In Ephesus and all throughout Rome, people believed in a pantheon of gods, and maybe you remember this from high school or from a world religion class in college, the Roman gods focused and were all about themselves. They did all kinds of crazy things: they toyed with people, they slept with each other and had all kinds of baby gods, they celebrated up on high, while people suffered on earth and the whole thing about the gods were the gods were all about themselves. Polytheism was about being like the gods, which meant that people imitated the gods and looked out for themselves. It was every man for himself and when I say man I don’t mean every hu-man, but just men, cause if you were born as a women you didn’t have rights, you didn’t matter. If you we’re poor, well to bad, you must have made the gods angry or something and if you were you woman and poor, well that’s just bad luck. So right was determined by might and whoever had the gold made the rules. And where did the pagans get this idea? From their polytheistic society. So Paul is saying, you are now a Christian, and I have been introducing you to ideas that your pagan friends do not understand. They do not see life and the world and culture the same way that you see the world now.
Paul will continue.
19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
given themselves to sensuality - In other words, this is an anything goes world when it comes to morality which was true in the pagan world because there was no morality connected to the worship of their gods. There were virtues, but no behavioral morality connected to paganism. Think of it this way. In Christianity we have moral ideas and moral behaviors connected to what we believe. Marital fidelity, financial integrity, love for your friends and your enemies, taking care of the weak and the poor, these are moral obligations that come with being a believer, but for paganism, these moral behaviors didn’t exist. There were no behavioral or moral expectations. So what Paul is saying, no wonder people in your culture live the way they do, because they don’t have anything telling them otherwise. But you Christians are apart of something new. You have a new model and a new God to follow who demands a certain level of morality. You are not judged or condemned by how well or how poorly you execute said morality, but just like in the pagan religion, we are to imitate our God and our God happens to be selfless and filled with mercy, grace, and love.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.
Not the way of life you learned - so your old way of living. This dog eat dog world. This greedy, do whatever you have to to get ahead, this might makes right, whoever has the gold makes the rules type of life, is not yours to live anymore. That isn’t your way. You have learned something different.
So quick sidebar, I’m going to say something pretty strong here, but let me get my point across before you shut me down. Everyone, doesn’t matter if you are a Christian or not, especially if you live in America, should be thanking, Jesus, the Apostle Paul, and the early church because they were advocating for what most of us assume.
See you assume people have individual rights. You assume that every person regardless of age, color, ethnicity, gender, or social standing should be treated fairly and with decency. You assume that sexual harrassment or that sexual abuse is wrong. You assume that the poor should be cared for and every person should be given rights as a human being. But why do you assume this? You assume this because this is something left over from first century Christianity. Jesus, the Apostle Paul, and the church advocated for the fair treatment and individual rights of every human being regardless of class, age, gender, or status. In fact, dignity of the individual in a culture is most pronounced in countries that have embraced the ideals of Christianity and that is true even today. That is because Christianity has the belief that every man, woman, and child bears the image of God and because of this belief, it gives every man, woman, and child value.
And in the world that Paul was living in, that was not the assumption. That was not their world view.
22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
to put off your old self - Paul is saying, when I first came to you in Ephesus, I told you that you have to take off your old pagan life, like you are taking off a coat. Take that old way of thinking off and cast it aside so that you will no longer be fooled by your deceitful desires.
Deceitful desire - this phrase deceitful desires is super interesting. It is something we all have had an association with, we just didn’t have a word for it. Do you want to know what a deceitful desire is? It’s a desire that promises one thing, but doesn’t deliver.
Ever had a desire like that? Ever chase a desire like that? You chased this thing that you wanted that promised life would end up a certain way, and when you got it, it wasn’t it. When you got who you wanted…it wasn’t it. It didn’t live up to the promise of your desire, and when you were faced with that lie, you know what that deceitful desire whispered to you?
Next time...
Next time, you’ll get it. This time it didn’t work cause it was her fault. This time it didn’t work cause it was his fault, but next time…next time it will be different.
So Paul says, those are the deceitful desires of your old way of life, and you are to take off that heavy coat of duplicity, take off that heavy coat of chicanery, and put on something different.
And then he says this:
23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Attitude of your minds - you will think differently
Put on the new self - You are taking off the old self filled with deceitful desires and put on your new self.
Created to be like God - again to be like God. Not the gods and they selfish way of doing this, but you are invited to be like the God who sent his son Jesus to die for your sins so that you can be holy, blameless, and righteousness just like your heavenly…what? Your heavenly Father.
Father is a relational word, a word that helps define the kind of relationship God wants with you. Not something cold and calculated. Not something that hinges on how many sacrifices you bring to the altar. But a good father, loves his children, opens his heart to them and desires to know them on a deep personal level.
Then after this, Paul begins to give his audience specific applications, and one of them is what we are to do with your words and our mouths. So heres how he applies this big idea of taking off one world view, one way of living, and putting on your new self, a new way of thinking and looking at the world.
29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
Unwholesome talk - So what Paul is saying…when you talk don’t let bad words, bad phrases, unkindness and sarcasm escape your lips. The key word here is the word unwholesome.
This word in greek is the word that means decaying and is often used to describe the smell of rotting fish. Or the smell of rotting fruit. Or the smell of deterrorating and rotting sandels. When I was in high school, I had a friend that wore Berkenstocks all day, every day. You know how he knew it was time to purchase new Berkenstocks? In his words, they began to smell like nachos. The word unwholesome here is anything distasteful.
So Paul is saying, as a Christian, don’t let anything distasteful come out of your mouth. So think about this word picture. The smell of rotting fish coming out your mouth. The smell of dirty, Berkinstock, nacho sandals coming out your mouth. As a Jesus follower, as someone that views every human being as someone that bears the image of God, do not let any distasteful word, do not let any stinking fish, nacho breathe come out of your mouth.
What does this entail? Just telling the truth? No. Everyone knows you are supposed to tell the truth, even pagans knew that. Paul is saying im raising the stakes. I want you to guard your mouth so that nothing distasteful comes out and look at the verse.
Who’s doing the “letting”? You are. I am. We are in charge of what comes out of our mouth. Your mouth is the gate and you are the gatekeeper. So when distasteful, sour, rotting words rush your mouth, you are to hold the gate and not let them out.
So when a Taco Bell employee tells you rudely, “you aint order that,” and distasteful words rushed your mouth, you got to shut the gates of your mouth and keep those suckers in.
So that feels pretty negative…but Paul is going to give us something positive to hang our hat on. He says,
29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
Only what is helpful - So the first time you read this verse, you may see it the same way that I saw it…Well that’s nice. It’s so nice. So basically Paul you are asking me to be Mother Theresa. You want me to be soft, and perfect, and so Christian. You want me to be like a kindergarten teacher. But come on…lets be real. Can we really live like that?
Can you imagine talking to your kid, “honey, can you please not put your little brothers finger in a light socket?”
Or in a performace review, “Jeff, Jeff. I love what you do here. You are just the best. But not judging, just saying, in the last 365 days you have worked here, you have come to work on time 4 times. Would you mind if you could quite possible come to work on time from now on?”
That wont work in the real world.
But look at how Paul explains it. He says “only what is helpful.” And helpful means that sometimes you will need to say things that are not easy sometimes. Sometimes your words will be weighty and filled with admonishment. Some of you know you need to dial back what you say, but others of you, the nice ones, may need to dial it up so that your words can build up your brother or sister in Christ.
And that’s what Paul says, be helpful for building…this word is a construction word and I love the word picture here. Think of yourself on a construction site and every person you talk too is a construction project and your job is to help construct the person into the image of God. Your job is to walk away from the conversation having made that person better for it.
Can you imagine what your family could look like if they spoke words that helped build you into the image of God? Can you imagine what our jobs would look like? Can you imagine what the internet would look like? This is world changing ideas here.
Oh but Pauls not done...
He says
29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
according to their needs - who’s needs? My needs? No. Their needs. This is so important because we said this in week one, we all want to be understood. We all want to be heard. When we talk, many times we are talking so that they can hear MY point of view. I am speaking so you can hear and accept my perspective but Paul is saying, uh uh. When you speak don’t let unwholesome words come out of your mouth and only say things that are helpful for building others up…according to what that person needs. When you talk, think of the other person. What do they need to hear? What is going to encourage them? What is going to help them? Is it a gentle word? Is it a compliment? Maybe it’s a hard conversation you need to have because they are traveling down an ungodly road.
But I want to talk. I want to say something. I want people to know that I’m so smart. I’m so wise. I got the answers. I had a great rebuttal. I had a great zinger that was going to put them on their butt. And to that Paul says, nope. If you are a Christ follower, this isn’t about arguing for you and getting your say in. Say words that are helpful. Say words that will benefit those who listen.
Paul continues. Just a little bit more and we’ll be done.
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit - this is simply, don’t say anything that will make the Holy Spirit go, “oh no! I can’t believe you said that.” We all have experienced this. We all have done it. Someone says something to us that tears down our world. It is the catalyst to a bad day. It makes us feel like doo doo. Here God is trying to build you up and along comes someone that tears you down.
And this is the last thing before we close…worship team you can come up.
Paul says
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
Get rid of all bitterness - The word get rid of, does not mean stop. It is a word that describes gathering all of it up and throwing it away. You know when you take the garbage out, what do you do. You tie it up and you walk yourself down to the dumpster and throw it away. You are not just stopping, you are packing it all up and throwing it away. And what are you throwing away? Bitterness
Guys this is so important look at me.
If you want to be a constructer, not a demolisher, you cannot do that with bitterness in your heart. You all know this. Im not saying anything you don’t know. Bitterness is a cancer that effects your whole like. It comes out of every surface of who you are. The way you talk, your tone, your sarcasm, your humor, it comes out in your world view, it comes out in how you treat your wife or your husband, your kids, or your coworkers. Those that are bitter are toxic to themselves and to every relationship around them.
So what do you do? How do you get rid of bitterness? You know the answer cause you guys are smart. Bitterness requires forgiveness.
Cause where does bitterness usually orginate? It comes from words spoken to us, about us, or over us. The reason you are so bitter is because you are still trying to live up to the things spoken about you or over you by your mothers and fathers. We have bitterness over friend that stopped trusting or believing in you. We have bitterness over relationships that came crashing down because of what they said in anger or spite. Bitterness is usually generated by words spoken to us, about us, or over us.
I see a therapist on a regular basis and I have recently discovered that i still have bitterness over things that were said about me in college? Guys that was like 20 years ago, but it still there. That bitterness, that hurt is still hanging over my heart. So you know what I have to do, I have to gather all that bitterness, throw it in a garbage bag and get it out of my house and out of my life. I have to throw it away. I have to eliminate it and I do that by forgiving the people that hurt me.
You guys hear what I’m saying? When we carry that bitterness that was brought on by someone else, we carry that bitterness RIGHT into our next relationship. And the shrapnel of that bitterness causes disfunction and gangrene in our hearts and in every relationship in our lives. And you know this, it affects that relationship in the way that we think, the way that we talk, the way that we love, not just in what we choose to do, but also in what we choose NOT to do because of our pride or because we have our guard up. And you know what happens to those that hold on to their bitterness. You begin to try and pay back that bitterness to the next person, because you cant pay back the person that wounded you in the first place.
That is why Paul says…
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Forgive each other…forgive that person that wounded you. Not because you are better than them. Not because you are stronger than them. You are forgiving them because Paul is reminding you, you have also done your own wounding. You have also done your share of demolishing, but Christ gave his life for you, to forgive you for all that heinous things you have done. He forgave you so that you can be like him and forgive others.
You know what forgiveness is? It is giving someone from the past what they don’t deserve so we can give those around us what they do deserve.