Criticism Gone Bad

Introduction: I don’t know how many of you have done this, but how many of you have ever said something that the minute it left your mouth, you regretted it?

I think we all probably have!

As I was preparing for this message, I began to think of some of the regretful things I have said in the past. Those statements that just make you want to cover your mouth and go “Oh no! I shouldn’t have said that”

Most of my stories are too embarrassing to revisit here, and not surprisingly, many of them happened on first dates.

I would ask you to raise your hand if you wanted to share one of these “misstatements,” but I’m afraid if I do that you might embarrass yourself and everyone else in the room.

However, a quick Google of the phrase “Things You Shouldn’t Say”brought up a funny article I’d like to share with you. Many of you have heard this before but it’s worth repeating.

10 Things You Probably Shouldn’t Say To A Police Officer

1. I thought you had to be in good physical condition to be a cop.

2. Sorry, Officer, I didn’t realize my radar detector wasn’t plugged in.

3. Officer, do you know why you pulled me over? Okay, as long as one of us does.

4. Gee, Officer! That’s terrific. The last guy only gave me a warning, too!

5. I was trying to keep up with traffic. I know there aren’t any other cars around. That’s how far ahead of me they got!

6. Hey pal, I pay your salary!

7. Aren’t you the guy from the Village People?

8. Hey, you must’ve been doing about 125 mph to keep up with me. Good job!

9. You’re not gonna check the trunk, are you?

10. When the Officer says “Gee Son….Your eyes look red, have you been drinking?” You probably shouldn’t respond with, “Gee Officer your eyes look glazed, have you been eating doughnuts?”

Those are too funny. But the reality is the only person in that joke who got hurt was the person saying those things to the officer. Right around the time he got cuffed I’m sure he was thinking “Man, I’ve really done it to myself this time!”

The only person he hurt was himself. He hurt his ego and, lets face it, his arrest record. But I would venture to say that 100% of us have said things that did a lot more than just hurt ourselves.

The words that come out of our mouth that hurt people often hurt the people closest to us.

We’ve called our friends “stupid,” “moron,” “retarded,” and we’ve told them to “just go die.” We’ve said things to them that have just killed them inside.

This week we continue with week 2 of our series called ZIP IT with a message entitled Criticism Gone Bad.

So if you are taking notes, get your notebooks ready.

If you have your bibles, flip with me to James 1:26 where we start our message tonight.

James 1:26 “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless”

It’s important that we get that message tonight. If we don’t keep a tight rein on our tongues, we are fooling ourselves and our religion is worthless.

One of the things we strive to do here at Counter Culture is to teach everyone about the things that deceive us. We know that when it comes to sexual purity, how important that is. We know how the enemy wants to deceive us. We know how he’ll try to trick us.

You get on your computer and all of sudden he’s telling you “Man, you’re just a little curious. Just take a little peek. It won’t hurt anything,” but we understand that we can’t play around with that stuff. He tells you its just curiosity but you’re deceived and the next thing you know id you’re a full blown porn addict. He’s out to deceive us.

Maybe you are dating someone and there’s that little, kissy, touchy, feeling going on. And you say “Oh we’ll stop at second base.” You won’t. You are deceiving yourself if you think you are going to be able to stop. He’s out to deceive us.

It’s like McDonald’s French Fries. Who loves McDonald’s French Fries? It’s the same thing. You just keep putting those things away. They taste so good going down and you’re like, “But you know, that if you keep doing that, in ten years you are going to weigh fifty-five hundred stinking pounds!”

We know that stuff. But, what about the words that come out of our mouth? We are deceiving ourselves if we think those words are not damaging and hurting people.

We tell ourselves like “Mmm. Girl, you know, she just had it coming!”

A little punch here, a little jab there.

It’s kind of like that when we sneeze. Think about it. Have you ever have one of those sneezes that spends 20 minutes building up? It builds up, and builds up until we finally sneeze and it feels so much better because all that pressure is gone. But what are we left with after a sneeze? SNOT! And what do we do with snot? We just wipe it off.

And that’s how those words of criticism feel coming out of our mouth. We think to ourselves is, “Man, we’re giving somebody a piece of our mind. Well, it’s about time somebody gave them a piece of their mind, and I’m glad I was the one to stand up and finally do it.”

That’s sarcasm, that’s wit, we think to ourselves. “Man, you know what, man? Wasn’t I funny? Look at that. It felt so good, everybody laughing,” and we have no idea of the damage that we are doing.

The central theme for tonight’s message is this: People who constantly criticize others often do not realize the damage they are doing. People who constantly criticize others are often deceivedand do not realize the damage that they are doing.

Tonight, we are going to look at the three root causes of criticism. We want to identify them. We want to zip it up, and we want to figure out how to turn that around and begin to speak words of life that build people up.

Thesis: People who constantly criticize others often do not realize the damage they are doing.

Transition: Three Root Causes of Destructive Criticism

I. Jealousy

a. Proverbs 14:30 “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.”

b. Envy rots the bones!

i. Picture the inside of your body, and imagine what it must look life for your bones to be rotting away.

1. Envy and jealousy rots away at the inside of us.

2. It rots away at our spirit and our soul.

3. It turns us into bitter, negative, critical people.

c. It doesn’t start big. It Starts Small.

i. The Car Illustration

1. You’ve got a friend that has this junker car. A complete jalopy. It’s a total piece of junk.

2. Meanwhile you’ve got a car that’s okay. It’s nice. But your friend needs a new car.

3. One day he calls to tell you that he has been saving up and has just bought a new car.

4. You figure, okay it’s used, but it’s new to him.

5. He rolls into your driveway with a brand new, totally tricked out ride. And you think “Whoa, he must have REALLY been saving!”

6. Now he’s driving a car nicer than yours!

7. So you walk outside and you’re like “Whoa, dude, nice car, would have picked a different color, but yeah man, that’s a good car.”

8. Just a little dig, a little jealousy pops up, comes out in the comment, and your friend should be like riding high.

9. Now he’s looking at the color going “yeah, um…”

ii. Girls are great at this.

1. I was flipping through the channels the other night and stumbled across this movie. This high school girl had just met this great, incredible guy.

2. So she goes to her girlfriends and says “you’ve got to meet this guy.”

3. So they meet him, and as soon as he’s out of the room all the girls get in their girl huddle and start picking him apart.

4. “Man, he’s this and he’s that and maybe he’s too perfect. Something’s got to be wrong with him.”

5. And this girl who was riding on cloud nine is all of a sudden coming down, down, down.

6. All because she has a couple of jealous single girlfriends!

7. “Well, if I can’t have him, she can’t have him,” and so this whole pattern starts.

8. And maybe it seems like “the right thing to do;”to point out this guy’s flaws to “protect”their friend.

9. All of a sudden, she’s walking away, because her friends are jealous and because what was coming out of their mouth wasn’t building her up.

d. Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice…”

i. This is what we are supposed to do. Don’t be jealous. Don’t take cheap shots at people. But instead: “Rejoice with those who rejoice…”

ii. Paul says “Listen, when something good is happening to somebody, get behind them and be excited.”

iii. You’re friend pulls in with a new car, don’t go dissing the color. Don’t look for something wrong with it.

iv. Instead say, “Oh, man, you deserve it. You’ve been saving, you’ve been working hard. Man, I’m so happy for you. Let’s go for a cruise.”

v. Rejoice with your friends when they rejoice.

e. “Am I truly happy for the good things others experience?”

i. Here’s the test. Here’s how you know if you are doing a good job. Here’s how you know if you’ve got jealousy rooted out of you, if you’ve let God clean it out of you.

ii. Ask yourself this “Am I truly happy for the good things others experience?”

iii. If you answer, “You know, I’m really not. When other people are experiencing good things, I’m not genuinely happy for them,” then today is your day to change.

iv. Today is your day to let God change that inside of you and allow you to take His scripture, put it into effect, and begin rejoicing and being happy for the good things that happen to others.

II. Negativity

a. Luke 6:45 “For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”

b. As we shared last week, the words that we speak reveal the condition of our heart.

i. In other words, what’s inside of you, what you think about, that’s what you are going to talk about.

c. As I explained last week, before I was saved I was indoctrinated with the attitude that “everything stinks.”

i. Once I became a Christian the negativity didn’t stop. I found a way to justify it.

ii. I would tell myself that “as a man, as a leader, it’s my job to find things and fix them.”

1. I would pick apart friends, enemies, and strangers. I would pick apart bands, businesses, and places. I’d tell you 100 reasons why your church was doing wrong and 200 reasons why mine was.

iii. All I did was look for what was broke, what was wrong, what had to be fixed, and I was this really negative person.

iv. As I explained last week, this finally came to an end in 2003 when my mentor Sam called me out on it.

d. Philippians 4:8 “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.”

i. These are the things you are supposed to think about.

ii. Once I got a hold of the fact that were things more important to think about that were true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable, I stopped thinking about the negative and focusing on the positive.

iii. Negativity. We’ve got to get rid of it.

e. If you’re taking notes write this down: Don’t be a downer. Be a cheerleader.

i. It’s time to quit being a downer and start being a cheerleader.

ii. I know some of you are like “but I hate cheerleaders!’

1. Don’t think about the person for a moment but think about the purpose.

2. A cheerleaders purpose is to Lead a Cheer. To pump the people up!

iii. Start cheering people on.

iv. Be excited for them.

v. Paul understood this. The Thessalonians were having a tough time and look what he did.

1. 1 Thessalonians 3:2-3 (The Message) “…We sent Timothy to get you up and about, cheering you on so you wouldn’t be discouraged by these hard times.”

2. He didn’t write them and say, “Listen, here’s all the reasons you are having a tough time.”

3. He didn’t say “You need to fix it. Do this and do that.”

4. Instead he says “…We sent Timothy to get you up and about, cheering you on so you wouldn’t be discouraged by these hard times.”

f. Who are you going to cheer on tomorrow?

i. Who are you going to encourage rather than criticize?

ii. Think about it. Let God show you.

iii. Start at home. Start with your parents. Many of your parents are going through tough times. Encourage them.

iv. Start at school. Every one of us knows a friend who needs to be encouraged.

v. Don’t point out all the reasons they’re in the place they are in… don’t try to fix them. Just get behind them and be an inspiration to them. Start looking for the good and pointing it out, speaking it out, speaking life.

III. Sarcasm

a. If you’re taking notes, write this down and don’t forget it: The cut down is the most deceiving of all types of bad criticism.

i. We think we are being funny. No one really believes that stuff. They don’t really feel it.

ii. While all along those little digs, those little jabs, those little cuts are killing people. They are hurting people.

b. Ephesians 5:4 “Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place…”

i. Those little sarcasm’s, those little digs, those little opportunities, you know, to be cute and funny, what they really are, is little shots. They are chipping away at people, tearing them down.

ii. It is those little digs, those little cut downs, those little comments that are often chipping away at the people that are closest to us.

1. I remember times in my childhood where my brothers would pick on my and call me names. At about the point where I’d be in tears they’d say “can’t you take a joke?”

a. They had no idea that these seemingly innocent remarks, those opportunities to be funny were tearing me down inside.

2. I’ve been on the other side of the coin too. I’d make a remark about someone all in the name of good fun and “Just kidding around” only to find out that I had really hurt them.

a. There is nothing worse than having someone you care for say to you “those remarks you made really hurt me.”

iii. What we think is harmless is cutting people and hurting them.

c. Ephesians 4:29 “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others…”

i. Instead of chipping away at people with our sarcasm, Paul calls us to build them up instead.

Counter Culture’s mission is to lead people to become equipped disciples of Christ.

The Bottom Line: Our mission is too important and our words too powerful to speak carelessly and risk damaging people.

Conclusion: For a whole lot of us this message is weighing heavy on our hearts because we are thinking about the words that we have spoken this week.

And what’s got to change in us? It’s got to be the filter. The thing, that filter our heart, our mind, the thoughts, the words that we speak, what comes out of us, the filter that they run through. It’s got to change.

The Coffee Filter Illustration.

It was so bad, but a lot of us, that’s exactly our words. The things that are coming out of our mouth are running through this filter that needs to be cleaned out so bad, and the only person who can really do that is Christ.

We’re going to walk out of here transformed and changed. The filter is going to be changed. God is doing some incredible thing, and the words that we begin to speak are going to be words that give life.