Can You Afford Your Words? | A Mother's Day Message From Jada Edwards

almost undressed to get the mic together good morning one community i'm so excited to be with you all happy mother's day to everybody that is celebrating and you know even for those that are dealing with mother's day as the first one or second one or eighth one without your mom we are thinking of you i have friends who are in that season and to the village the people who may not have birth children but you know who you are because people with children would have put their children out without you we say thank you and happy mother's day so it's a beautiful day i hope you're celebrated well and i'm excited to be with you uh we i recently saw a social media challenge uh that said tell me how old you are without telling me how old you are and so my friends and i thought this was a fun fun challenge to take up so you don't say your age you just kind of say things that say how old you are so my friend said i am pay phones and quarters old and so we were like we understand what that means and i had another friend that said i'm save your change for the candy house oh now if you understand that the candy house is not the candy store then you know what i'm talking about already so that's different see the candy store was legit the candy house was the place that looked like a neighborhood in your house but when you walked in the front door somebody's auntie had converted their whole living room to like a little convenience store and they had a side hustle going on and the irs probably still don't know about it to this day but we got our candy there for a penny and my other friend said i am be home before the street lights come on old right y'all know what i'm talking about uh i had another friend that said i'm everybody could spank you old do y'all remember that you remember that season when by the time your parents got to you that was like your third one for the day because the teacher had liberty liberty and the principal did and if you saw your sunday school teacher at the grocery store she'll say did i hear you acting up at school come with me over here to this frozen food section and you might get it right in the middle of the roster in jesus name and she'd have a scripture to go with it too so we were laughing talking about that and i told them i said i'm allowance old well you didn't ask when the event came up but you had a little bit of allowance and you needed to save for it so when i would ask my dad to go to the movies or go to different things he would say wait a minute but didn't i give you your little five dollars or your ten dollars or whatever where did that go and i'm like oh that was but that was days ago you know he would say no you have to save your money and i i laughed at that thought because as i thought about how i'm allowance and save your money oh i realized that my children are growing up in a very different generation they are money is a magic plastic card old so they have no concept of value and what things cost and we see it even as conway and i are trying to teach our son about time and money and educators will affirm me in this that teaching kids time on a real clock with hands and teaching kids money are the two hardest concepts i see a witness right there you know why because they have no need for it when you tell them something is going to take 10 minutes and they have to come inside after 20 minutes even if you give them 30. they're going to say wait a minute already yes because they have no understanding of time because they don't have to be anywhere and they have no understanding of money because they don't have to pay for things but at least the generation before my kids saw their parents on occasion pull out cash and maybe have to count the cost of something my grandmother was the grandmother that sent us into the drugstore with exact change because she could calculate the sales tax you go in there she's like i need some aspirin and it's going to be 786 and they would ring it up and we'd just be like they go right there my mom was the mom that when you said you wanted some tennis shoes but you already had what she was obligated to buy she said you had to save up your money and if they went on sale you had to tell her to sell a price because it was 30 percent off she said tell me what they cost and then we're going to talk about it do the math right now and you have to sit there and like dirty now we in a generation now if that sales register goes out i have helped many a cashier make change because we y'all know what i'm saying so before before we got to the swipe only in the cash list that thing would go out and they'd be like oh right my bill was 10.95 and so i gave you 11. oh this is more i know so you owe me five jesus so i don't know what my kids are going to do because they see us swiping and they see tapping and beaming and someone you're watching it's on your phone they have no concept of what things cost and as i was studying this passage matthew chapter 12 where we're going to be and i thought about the words that jesus uses in this exchange the lord really reminded me that the same is true for believers but not with their money it's with their words and i wonder how many times we're able to count the cost of our words are we just swiping carelessly mindlessly or are we actually counting the cost because the passages we're about to walk through today are going to remind us that our words have spiritual value they cost something and so the question on the floor is can you afford your words and that's the question for everyone and i know there's statistics about how much women talking how much men talking how much everybody says something sometimes and more importantly than that this passage is going to show us that what comes out of your mouth is not even the real issue but you've got to ask yourself am i representing the god that i say i serve with what comes out of my mouth can i afford what i say there's a cost to be counted in matthew 12 i'll read a few verses there to explain kind of the foundation of what i want to share matthew 12 we'll start with verse 34 b that's the second half of that verse and it says jesus has just kind of had a heated exchange with the pharisees because they were being you know pharisees and so he says to them for the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart the good man brings out of his good treasure what is good and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil but i tell you that every careless word y'all say careless put that in the chat just say careless that's what we're talking about this morning that every careless word that people speak they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment verse 37 for by your words you will be justified and by your words you'll be condemned now the good news is for the believer the one who has already laid claim to following jesus christ this condemnation this justification is not a matter of heaven and hell but it is a matter of reward the day will come where god will measure us by how we lived for him and it's going to impact what our eternity looks like and that is just the straight-up truth and he says there will be a day where you will be held accountable for what you say so he doesn't care how many times you edited the comment and undid and undeleted and tried to remove it one day you will be held accountable for it and here's the issue it's not just about the words the syllables the the letters that form sounds that come out of your mouth it's a matter of the heart he says out of the heart is where the mouth speaks right so the heart is is like the river and when the riverbank overflows the mouth is like the waterfall that's what it is and so you can't say that waterfall of words come out of your mouth but your heart is one for jesus he's saying the two are intricately connected and maybe you don't have a huge waterfall maybe you don't have a lot of words but you still have something in your heart that needs to be checked now for some of us we're talkers i know i'm a talker so generally what i'm thinking you're going to know because i process externally god bless anyone who happens to be around that's that's my battle i'm working through it but some of y'all might not talk a lot but you think a lot and you're you're the kind that that you nod and smile with your church smile [Music] but in your heart you're like not today oh i'm not doing that oh absolutely not or while you're listening and smiling you're texting your friend like he out of his mind if he thinks right so it's not just the words that you speak don't let your silence be counted as good intentions because just because you can restrain your words doesn't mean that your heart is right he's saying the mouth is intricately connected intricately connected to the heart and that's where we will be judged and it's important because nothing in scripture church disconnects our mouth from our heart think about romans 10 19 if you confess with your mouth and believe with your heart that you will be saved both of those are necessary so we have to ask ourselves this question what is in my heart that might eventually come out of my mouth i have to ask myself where is my heart leaning where is my heart learning who is my heart listening to because those things will eventually come out of our mouths very often you'll notice when people start to hang around different people they listen to different teachers they listen to different music or they take on some ideology or something becomes important to them because their language changes last week if you got to hear that amazing word from pastor robert you heard him talk about a few things that was a good word wasn't it you can give it up he'll watch it later it was a great word and if you think about what he was saying he he started dropping words like leptin and garland and dopamine i said oh oh oh he didn't just lose weight he became a whole nutritionist okay because once he got into understanding how the body metabolizes energy and insulin and what what makes us hungry and what makes us satisfied it wasn't just a matter of simple weight loss for him he kind of became an expert right and so he's the kind of person that if you around him eating a snack he might tell you that's going to raise your leptin and you're like you know what just pass the snickers because nobody needs to i don't want to hear about my girl and my dopamine right now right because what happens is when you become entrenched in something when you lean towards something it changes your language and so you might be the kind of person that now you're into a new way of thinking now you're all into money and saving and your friends used to go shopping with not trying to hear it like man we just want to buy the shoes and you're like but yes but you could also invest that if you did it every year at 10 on this return you know what i'm saying so whatever you get into ends up coming out of you so you've got to figure out where is my heart leaning what am i listening to nothing it passes through without affecting you and we take in a lot of information in this age and you think you're able to filter but all of a sudden you listen to a certain type of a teacher or influencer and it changes the way you view family or you start having certain friends or becoming part of certain social groups on social media and it changes the way you view self or the way you view money or the way you view your body all of these things because of the way our heart is leaning so i don't want us to disconnect our words from our heart but we need to understand the power church because he says careless words is what's going to get us in trouble not thought out intentional words when colossians 4 6 calls us to have a speech that's seasoned like with salt to give grace for the moment when proverbs 18 21 tells us that death and life are in the power of the tongue and we love that verse when we're trying to speak life into something we're trying to speak life into the car and to the promotion into the marriage and all these things we know we love the life part but what about the death part what about the part when you say things that tear people down or create division instead of unity that's why james says repeatedly if anyone thinks himself to be religious but doesn't bridle his tongue he deceives his own heart for we all stumble in many ways but we don't if you don't stumble in what you say james says you're a perfect man we have to understand the source of where our words come from because we don't want careless words but how even more tragic they have careless words that are copies of somebody else's words they need to be you need to understand what's feeding your heart and so for for the talkers like myself you got to watch out because we want to impress people we want to be recognized and sometimes our words are careless and for the dominant alpha personalities because you need people to know you're in charge sometimes your words can be careless and for the loyalists you you come to people's defense all the time sometimes your words can be careless because you're trying to avoid conflict and you're affirming things that shouldn't be affirmed and for the thinker you need to be careful too because you might be a calculator of how you say things and you make sure it's meticulously thought out and all your points are lined up and but your words might be accurate but they're not honoring so it really doesn't matter how many words come out of your mouth or the way you think or or what your personality is or your gender all of us have to be mindful of the words that we're responsible for can you afford your words well when i think about jesus's charge in matthew chapter 12 it reminds me of one of the most powerful i think exchanges in the in all of scripture and that is when jesus stands before pilate so what i want to do for the next few minutes is just look at two accounts of jesus before pilate because a man who has who has charged us with not having idle words with reminding us that we're going to be condemned or justified by our words gives us the perfect example of how to measure our words and we can learn from him so i'm going to read a few verses in mark 14 and 15 and a few in john 18 and 19 so you can understand what's happening mark 14 starting with verse 60 the high priest stood up and came forward and questioned jesus saying do you not answer what is it that these men are testifying against you but he kept silent y'all say silent that's somebody's word already for today silent and did not answer again the high priest was questioning him and saying to him are you the christ the son of the blessed one and jesus said i am and you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven skipping ahead in mark 15 2-5 again pilate questions him first the high priest questions him the highest ranking religious leader and now the highest ranking governing leader questions him are you the king of the jews and he answered him it is as you say like in my mind when he says as you say i feel like he's saying if you like it i love it right i already said what i say it i don't need to give you any more words and in verse 3 the chief priest began to accuse him of many things then pilate questioned him again you have no answer look how many charges they are bringing against you but to pilots amazement jesus made no further reply now john 18 and 19 verse 32 it says to fulfill the word of jesus which he spoke therefore verse 33 pilate enters again into the praetorium they have the same similar conversation but john gives us a little more information he says to him are you the king of the jews and in verse 34 jesus answered are you saying this on your own initiative or did others tell you about me pilate says i'm not a jew am i your own nation and the chief priest delivered you to me what have you done jesus answers my kingdom is not of this world if my kingdom were of this world and my servants would be fighting so that i would not be handed over to the jews but as it is my kingdom is not of this realm verse 37 pilate says so you are a king jesus says it's as you say correctly i am a king for this i have been born for this i've come into the world to testify to the truth skipping to john 19 lastly the last exchange with pilate and jesus and he says to him where are you from in verse 9 but jesus gave him no answer y'all say no answer verse 10 so pilate said to him you do not speak to me do you know that i have authority to release you and i have authority to crucify you and here is the mic drop moment jesus says in verse 11 you would have no authority over me unless it had been given to you from above for this reason he who delivered me to you has the greater sin now i read all of this so you could understand that that our savior actually gives us a perfect template a perfect example of what it means to make sure that our words are not careless how can we look at these exchanges between jesus and the high priest and jesus and pilate and have the same ability to measure our words i think there's four things that we can learn from this exchange and the first one is this your authority determines your answer your authority determines your answer look to the high priest in mark 14 verse 60 jesus said yes i am the blessed one i am you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power coming with clouds of heaven so he's telling the highest ranking religious leader actually i am the author of religion and i rank higher than you and one day you're going to see it and in john 19 he tells pilate you would have no authority over me unless it had been given to you from above he makes it very clear that while you may have authority here on earth even what you have is derivative my father had to give it to you and so i'm not going to be intimidated by second hand and third-hand authority so because i know where my authority lies that i have it with my father above it determines when i answer if i answer how i answer if you look at these exchanges jesus doesn't say the same thing every time he gives a little bit of explanation and then he says this as you say and eventually in all of the accounts except for john he goes silent because when you understand your own authority you don't always feel obligated to answer your accuser now i'm not talking about rebuke and exhortation and you know people godly people or leaders over you that you need to give an account for i'm talking about blatant you have no obligation to them people are just throwing accusations at you every time you feel the need to defend yourself or or give the final word or go back with the clap back for the people accusing you you are saying the accuser is your authority because now you're saying i'm obligated to answer you i am not settled enough in who i am that i can leave without knowing what you think of me see when i know who my authority is i don't feel obligated to answer and when i do answer it's not necessarily to defend myself it's like god what do you want me to say in this moment and can i tell you something that might be hard for some of us to hear sometimes when i ask him what he wants me to say in the moment he says nothing and i ask again i'm like are you sure lord you know how i am with the words i got some words he's like nothing what i see i say it what i say it nothing and then i pray again just to make sure because you know i have my points and i have all my my things ready and so i want to make sure the lord didn't want me to speak on his behalf and some of y'all need to understand some of y'all got to understand you know silence is golden sometimes oh it can bless your soul uh sometimes you need to leave that text in draft y'all know what i'm saying if you if you're getting carpal tunnel cause you that's probably not the time my husband tells me if i'm starting to count i probably shouldn't answer the right thing cause when he tells me something if i start with her first of all he's like no no just hold on calm down okay because that means i have many points many counterpoints i have a first through eighth probably right and some sub points some bullets some extra side notes because some of you like myself y'all keep receipts and when people try to come for you you got your words i see the conviction is disguising yourself as laughter but i'm gonna let y'all make it so some of y'all keep receipt you know you keep receipts when people come for you you the people that send screenshots you you don't just reply you like oh because on april 12 2017 what in the world and this is not a male or female thing i have people that i work men do it too this is not a woman thing i have had men send me screenshots emails with attachments because when she said this on this day and that's why the rules change the end is no discussion i'm like wait a minute hold on hold on sometimes you might need to type that thing out but just leave it in draft don't put anybody in the tube so you don't accidentally send it sometimes you need to get it out because most of the time i really want to say all the time but every now and then we have a godly exception most of the time the flesh's first response is not of god it's not of god and very rarely does god call us to defend ourselves in front of accusers most often god says you say either a few words or no words and let me do the defending and the things that work out outside of your knowledge and certainly outside of your control far outweigh whatever statement you could have made in the moment but you have to know who your authority is you have to know that anybody accusing you their authority at best is derivative it's been handed down and even if they don't have good intentions and god you know their heart and how are they coming for me like this he says i am the sovereign god and either i approve it or i allow it but nothing is out of my control and the more you allow them to shape your response and your emotions in the state of your well-being the more you are conceding that your authority is actually with them and not with me so he says when you know your authority that determines your answer when was the last time somebody was surprised by your silence the scripture says that pilate stood amazed matthew mark and luke all say the same thing that he stood amazed because jesus had a case he could have said things he could have called down angels he could have set the world on fire and he did none of those things and his accuser stood amazed do you know that your accuser will most often be amazed by what you don't do more than what you actually do because when you can say something when you do have the final word when you do have all of the evidence and you choose not to use it you are saying i answer to someone greater than you there's not anything somebody can make me type in the comments of a social media post that gives them more power over my life and unless i let them so knowing your authority determines your answer number two the world you claim determines the words you speak the world that you claim which world do you claim john 18 36 jesus answered my kingdom is not of this world y'all say not of this world just put in the chat not of this world listen we love to say we in the world but not of the world but we act of the world so we lay claim to this world and that's why it determines the words that we speak see this world is about self over others this world says you go into your boss and if you want to get a promotion you got to make sure and throw shade on everybody else and oh they really didn't do that part i did that part because you got to make sure you get the promotion god's world says i do all the elevating this world says you gossip because when you don't get your way or when you disagree but you don't have the ability to go and have a face-to-face respectful honoring conversation you just talk about it behind their back you have the meeting after the meeting or or you try to find other people that agree you you start to generate opinion polls you know have you ever met people who whenever they come with you come to you with something they say well you know a lot of people think you're like who who is a lot of people did you take a poll who who are the lot of people well i don't want to say oh so you have integrity to not reveal the cold conspirators but no integrity to approach me about the conflict okay i'll just check it all right because we have situational integrity that's what this world is about conditional integrity when everybody's looking and it makes you look good but when nobody's looking and it might allow you to get ahead you do what you think is best this world says that you elevate self this world says that when you really don't like somebody you kind of throw shade and you might tell more of their business than you know you should be telling and if you churchy you call it a prayer [Applause] request [Music] you know can you help me think through this what are your thoughts on this you know so and so uh you know she spent all her money on you like wait a minute hold on why are you talking to the person that can't make a decision on the thing you're talking about that's gossip we have no business doing it and then we get an act like this world and then i click on your bio or click on your profile or i see your t-shirt and your muppet stick and i'm like jesus love a child wait a minute because the world you're laying claim to doesn't line up with the words that you're speaking then line up with the things in your heart and even more so if you're not a talker if you're more of a thinker reflector contemplator and you don't say a lot of words your words are even more important because if you don't say a lot and then when you speak you're dropping bombs on people it does so much damage because we might not hear you talk again for a day or two y'all know who you are you don't say anything i'm gonna put you on punishment from my words i'm not gonna tell you how i feel you saw that text coming in i'm not gonna respond i don't feel like i don't have to but then when i say something it's like daggers it's not reflective of who god is and who i say i lay claim to the world you lay claim to should determine the words that you speak number three oh i love y'all your obedience is more important than your oppression the bible say to y'all it's not me your obedience is more important than your oppression you're well done is what matters to god he is not up in heaven cheering you on that you made a good point he's not like yes you tell them yeah that that's that's what exactly no no you're obedience and and this is such a weighty idea when i look at this exchange with jesus because he was being obedient even in his silence it's okay if you don't have the final word you don't ever make your point at the expense of purpose ever there is no point that costs god's plan and purpose for your life losing influence ending relationships creating divisiveness and division just to make a point listen isaiah 53 7 in the prophecy of the coming messiah says he was oppressed y'all say oppressed and he was afflicted yet he did not open his mouth like a lamb that is led to slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before its hearers he did not open his mouth so jesus being silent in the moment wasn't just about his personality it wasn't just about restraint it was actually the fulfillment of prophecy can you imagine that sometimes the words you're speaking are working against what god has planned for your life is it worth it can you afford that there's prophecy and purpose at stake philippians 2 5-8 says have this attitude in yourself which was also in christ jesus that although he existed in the form of god did not regard equality with god a thing to be grasped but emptied himself he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross now i'm not saying that when you obey you gonna die y'all like why we can't live and be obedient jada this is not the point that you obey and then you will die the point is that obedience is so important that if it brings the earthly death god says i want you to obey me first it's greater than your oppression and if you really believe the bible that says to live is christ and to die is gain there should not be any oppression on this earth that gives me justification to be disobedient he's saying are you asking me what to say in this moment y'all and i understand we are living in some oppressive times you you can feel oppression from so many different angles it could be the color of your skin it could be the gender that you are as a female it could be it could be the fact that you are socioeconomically lower on the latter poverty we have oppression against the poor listen it's always coming at us and by the way oppression is bigger than america if you don't have a global view if you don't feel the weight of the oppression in india as covet cases rise the weight of the oppression in burma as families have to live on the street with young children if you don't feel all that you've missed it the gospel and truth of god is bigger than your zip code if it don't apply everywhere then it's not right so if you are responding if you are reacting in such a way that cannot be extrapolated across every platform every zip code every country in the world it's time to rethink it sometimes i look and i see the things that we say to people in the name of justice or in the name of carrying the banner of god and and i wonder are we counting the cost is god really in that because our obedience has to supersede our oppression when we want to disobey y'all and i'm not talking about civil disobedience i'm not talking about not being active in government or taking up causes for the disenfranchised no i'm not talking about that i'm talking about the fact that you cannot say i'm taking up a cause in the name of god but then i'm not acting godly you just can't do it the two have to be in sync because there's nothing that we have faced that even comes close to the crucifixion and jesus standing before his oppressors y'all didn't give an excuse didn't give a defense for himself and he actually by the way is literally the only innocent human that's ever walked earth there's no children there's no babies there's no adults there's no people not found guilty we are born in sin jesus actually is the only innocent one and so they he took oppression that should have been ours and he stood before his accusers and he was able to remain silent because his obedience was even greater and it wasn't just a bullet to the heart a nice clean quick death it was the crucifixion reserved for the harshest criminal and he opened not his mouth but you gotta post on facebook but you gotta clap back in the text but you gotta say something mumbling under your breath siding you oh we got to say something all the time or we just keep it in our heart and it changes our attitude toward people and he stood before his oppressors and opened not his mouth he stood on authority he knew he was from another world he knew his obedience was greater and number four he knew what was coming when you know what's coming you can remain calm when you know what's coming you can remain calm y'all say remain calm let me tell you when you know what's coming you can remain calm mark 1462 he says i am and you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven coming he has a future hope y'all it reminded me recently my husband and i were watching a track and field event i'm i'ma tell excuse me so we watch track and field sometimes and sometimes there's a house divided when it's jamaica against the u.s because you know marital attention gets a little thick in there um but we're watching track and field because we're both former athletes i am free in the fact i'm a former athlete your pastor still thinks he's a athlete because he's at home y'all he y'all he he's practicing the triple jump at my house in the long jump and i'm confused i'm like what are we training for something i don't you know just wanna know i still got it you don't got it we we we lost it long time ago you know and listen it's so many things you do well he's a genius he got 28 degrees he can lead 50 000 people at one time so many things but that triple jump we need to lay that to rest we need to lay it to rest i mean i don't think there's senior olympics that we're trying to i don't know what's going on but y'all it's so i it is so serious and i keep telling him i'm a videotaping for this social justice because he's at home running and jumping and he looking at me how did i do get your phones out get your phones out get your phone out [Applause] ah y'all i already saw how that was gonna go didn't you y'all were everybody was like please do it please do it it's comedy at my house comedy so we're always watching track and field events and and there was a season where there really wasn't much of a race and i remember a particular race where the usa men were racing against jamaican team and we were ahead for the first couple of legs i was like wow there's a relay i was like yes we got wind and he's just sitting there like i said you don't see us in the lead he's a that's okay way to the fourth leg and he was calm and i said oh shucks it's usain bolt listen some stuff is not even fair okay god because i mean his waist is like right here like three strides he's passed all the humans and and so even though i was excited about those three legs my husband was calm because he knew what was coming you know what i'm saying and a good coach knows where to place those runners in that race but your anchor leg is always that secret beast and sometimes it may seem like the other team is ahead but that anchor leg knows how to make up the gap let me tell you how we can remain calm when we're facing oppression because we know what's coming church listen there's going to be times in this life where you feel like you're ahead other times you feel like you're behind but there is an anchor leg coming god says this thing is in the bag but here's what you need to understand church the anchor leg is not here on earth and if you think that your best days or your earthly days you've missed the point of the gospel the anchor leg is in glory it's in heaven jesus says i'm gonna tell you what's coming that's why i can remain calm because however long we have here on earth it doesn't compare to forever listen ephesians one reminds us of the fulfillment of glory that we're going to experience one day you need to remember that it says we have every spiritual blessing we've been seated in heavenly places chosen before the foundation of the world adopted as sons and daughters redeemed through his blood forgiven for every sin according to the riches of his grace which he lavished on us reveal the mystery of his will to us benefactors of a plan for the fullness of time we have an inheritance we have the word of truth the gospel of salvation we are sealed with the promise of the holy spirit who is the guarantor of our inheritance and he says until we acquire full possession of it until not yet but soon y'all that fourth leg is coming but you can remain calm on the first three regardless of who's in the lead because you know the fourth one's coming and to the degree that you allow this world and the accusers and the oppression and all the things coming at you to drive what comes out of your mouth to change your attitude to that degree you are declaring this is as good as it gets because if you know it gets better after this you can remain calm because you know what's coming do you know that even in revelation 12 john sees a vision the body of all the believers and they stand before not just these little human accusers you got not just you know your boss and your friends and whoever the ultimate accuser satan himself you know what the word says that they overcome the accusations of this accuser by the blood of the lamb and what else the word of their testimony that's how powerful our words are that we testify and it becomes a part of our overcoming but i wonder if the words coming out of our mouth are adding to our testimony what are the words that we're saying saying about god because everything should be to the praise of his glorious grace listen this is not about you having a better reputation this is about us glorifying god and this is that just to be refined refined and constricted to these pages it has to lift off into our everyday lives that means when we're having conversations at work with friends when we feel oppressed when we feel someone's coming at us when we want to respond we don't want to have the we don't we want to have the final word or we don't want to feel taken advantage of or i need you to know what my points are i need you to know piece of my mind i need to say these things there's something in us that says does this really need to be said do i ask god first because can i really afford this we measure our words as jesus modeled because that is how we glorify god you can't say you live a life that glorifies god and the things that come out of your mouth don't glorify god and sometimes like can i just tell you sometimes you're gonna be right when it comes to the argument but if you lean harder into your rightness then you do your righteousness you're gonna honor yourself and not the lord and i've seen the lord elevate some folks and made mistakes and and lower some folks that seem to be right all the time because their heart and their humility was in line with him so i want us to be mindful of our words church i i don't want us to be like my kids who think that money is this magic plastic card i want us to be able to count the cost now you know earlier this year i lost my debit card and then i left because it didn't even matter my my uh debit card is in my phone and you know you can put it on your watch and it's all kind of places in your apps automatically and i was like you don't even need the card like you just hit place order or check out or you tap it and zap it and beam it and all of a sudden you spent money you have no concept really of what we're spending every day that's why sometimes we log on to the bank you're like oh wait what happened what why is that number red does that mean special or what what what's really going on but if you know anything about financial peace or people who are trying to be on a budget instead of the car they'll tell you put that up because that's not good that's how you get your envelopes y'all know about the envelope system if you don't let me let me explain to you they want you to get those envelopes and set aside your expenses and put cash in there because they know when you take out cash and have to spend it it feel different you're watching that money and you're thinking about work hours right you thinking about savings you're thinking about oh jesus do i you know what i don't need it just that's fine take that off you know when you get up to the friends yo you know you've done it you got it and you're like how am i okay take off i don't need that extra you know you still you know how to make some adjustments but i need us to do that with our words i need us to say you know what this is what's between me and my husband why am i telling votes calling it a prayer request that caused something you know what i don't need to worry about trying to force a promotion god is in control i don't have to talk about my co-workers that cause something why am i gossiping just because i disagree god do i need to say it that caused something god do i need to post it that cost something god do i need to text it that costs something and i spend and i spend and i spend and i do it my way in the way i want and guess what i hadn't been able to afford it and when god needs me to say something divine in the moment i'm broke [Music] [Applause] can you afford your words church they're not meaningless there's a spiritual cost and the world needs to know that our words carry weight not driven by emotion or headlines not driven by a self-centered need to get back they're driven only by what glorifies god and sometimes the moment is not even worthy of our words it will keep them to ourselves to the glory of god grace amen [Music] what a word will you pray with me heavenly father will you will you not just allow this to be words but will you change us from the inside out [Music] will you help us to count every word that comes out of our mouth and make sure we're using it to bless others not speak against them will you change our minds according to the words so that it will be renewed so that each one of us will in light of that live differently because of eternity [Music] we pray this in jesus name everybody said amen uh let's let's not for real let's thank god for his example through jesus christ as he stood before pilate knowing all the answers and still being quiet for real if you're here today and you need somebody to pray with you then i'm going to ask that you don't just leave but that in a moment as everybody's gone out that you will take a little bit of time and come down if as a couple you know you've got into fights and the words have have been shared with each other that are not encouraging and beneficial then then then don't just go just perhaps going over prayer if you don't know jesus christ i'm telling you you can't just do behavior modification or else in two weeks when you don't have a fresh word all that's going to happen is you're going to go back to the old way that's why you need jesus so that there's a changed heart so that there's the holy spirit living inside of you so that the holy spirit will now be your guide along that process if you don't know jesus and you want to get to know him then will you please if you're online just click that button and tell us hey will you will you will you pray with me about this click the next step button and tell us how we can have a conversation with you about jesus christ if you're in the house and you want to have that conversation as everybody's going out you just come on down and allow us the privilege to have that conversation uh let me give you a couple of highlights before we send it over to our digital team number one next week or service changes back again to nine and eleven so those will be the two service times nine and eleven starting next week

Channel: One Community Church

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Id: mBWfYrhXhCE

Length: 43min 33sec (2613 seconds)

Published: Sun May 09 2021