Welcome to Union Grove Weekly with Pastor Josh Evans. Union Grove Weekly is a sermon broadcast from Union Grove Baptist Church, located in the northern Davidson community of Lexington, North Carolina. It is our desire to give you practical teaching from God's Word that will encourage and inspire you on your journey with Jesus. Thanks again for tuning in to Union Drove Weekly. The Bible has a lot of life hacks.
A lot of spiritual heavenly wisdom. that we can apply to our marriages. to our relationships with our kids, our relationship to our friends. You can apply it at work. With your employer and with the people you do business with, you can apply it to your finances and your budget and your time and your hobbies and everything.
The Bible has a lot of wisdom. that you can apply to life. And it's basically saying this, and this is what the book of Proverbs is all about. It is if you apply the wisdom that is found in the book of Proverbs to your life, then life will generally work out better for you. Because you're living according to his plan and not according to your plan.
So, so far in this series, we've seen heavenly wisdom and we've defined it, and we've seen life hacks for relationships, life hacks for our finances, and today we are going to look at life hacks. For our words, for our words, for our conversation. For our speech.
Now, I understand what you're thinking. You're thinking that you never say things you're not supposed to, and so you are cleared. You can kind of take a nap this morning during your time with us, and you probably think I'm good with this one. But let me tell you this: as I was studying this, what we're going to look at in the book of Proverbs, we're going to jump around a little bit. Here's what I want you to know: every single person in this room.
Can learn something from what the book of Proverbs has to say about how we use our tongue. And here's what I want you to know: our words. are important. When you were growing up, Um and as a kid When you were, say, on the playground or playing a sport, and somebody said something really mean to you. Here's what you normally would say.
You would say, and you can help me finish this: you would say, sticks and stones. May break my bones, but finish it. Words will never hurt me, right? You would say that, and as kids, we would say that oftentimes to kind of cope with whatever. Pain was just inflicted at us from somebody.
But you would say this, and as you get older, every adult in this room would understand this. Is that that is not true? Can I get an amen there, please? That's not true. Our words Can hurt.
Our words can pierce Our words can destroy. In fact, in the New Testament, the book of James, which is really the New Testament counterpart, if you would, to the Old Testament book of Proverbs, the book of James, it actually says, it describes our tongue and our speech as a fire, as a wildfire that can't be tamed. It goes on to say that it's like a beast. If you would, that can't be tamed. That's just, it's like a poison, if you would, if it's not controlled.
But it goes on to say in the book of James that if you master your tongue, And you master this? Then you can master your entire life because this is the hardest thing for you to tame. And the book of Proverbs talks a lot about your tongue and how to tame it. And here's what I will tell you: the book's going to be broken down, and how we look at our words, how we handle our conversation. It's going to be broken down into three specific things about your speech.
The first one is the content of your speech. That's what you say. And that's the one we spend the most emphasis on, right? We say that. I mean, you heard your parents say this phrase at some point: if you can't say anything nice, Don't say anything at all.
How many parents have probably already said that to this kids today, right? I have to say that to my kids all the time about their children. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
So, here's what I want you to know: in the book of Proverbs, it talks about the content of our words, what we say, and we spend the most emphasis there. But not only that, Solomon in his writing, he talks about the tone. How we say certain things.
Now we don't like to set talk about tone a lot, right? We don't like to talk about that, but he talks about our tone.
So, not only does he address content, what we say, he addresses tone, how we say it, but then he also addresses the purpose in which you say certain things. The purpose of what's your motive for why you're trying to say what you're trying to say. And the Bible, and specifically the book of Proverbs, it talks about all of that.
So here's the life hack for today. If I was to summarize everything we're going to dive in and unpack today, here's the life hack about your words today: it's this: think. Before you speak. Can we all say that together? Think before you speak.
Think of your motive before you Speak. Think of what your words are going to inflict on somebody else before you speak. Think about the tone of your voice and the timing of what you're saying. Before You Speak. That's the theme of what we should learn about our words from the book of Proverbs.
So, Proverbs chapter 12. In verse 13, here's what he says in verse 13. He says, This: The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips. But the just shall come out. of trouble.
Now, before we go on to verse 14, Solomon, he's writing this about our tongue and about our speech. And he's basically mentioning the cause and effect of our tongue.
So he's talking that your words Have a result. And he says that if you are evil and wicked, which is the way of the foolish, your tongue's gonna always find you in a snare. You're gonna find yourself in like a trap. With your tongue. Have you ever said this about yourself?
My mouth always gets me in trouble. Right? If you've ever found yourself saying that, or that's what your reputation is around you, that your tongue gets you into trouble, then that's what he's addressing here: is that the way of the wicked, because of their lips, they always find themselves in a trap, they always find themselves in a snare, but the just will. Will actually be delivered from the trouble that they find themselves in. Look at what he says in verse 14: a man shall be satisfied with good.
By the fruit of his mouth. And the recompense of a man's hands shall be rendered unto him. Once again, a verse about cause and effect. Our words have meaning, our words inflict, our words actually do something, and they mean something. Just like he says, he mentions fruit.
Just like a tree. Bears fruit. Your words bear fruit. Not only, not always good fruit. But your words do bear some type of fruit from it.
And so we must. Watch What we say, how we say it. And the purpose of what we are going to do. To say. And so today, let's look at it today.
Number one, if you take notes, this will be a good message for you if you're a note taker, all right? But the first point is this. Is we must heed the warning. about the content of our words. We must heed the warning.
about the content. of our of our words. When I was a youth pastor, And I would speak about words and stuff like this. I should have done this today, but I didn't. I'm just going to tell you what I used to do in student ministry.
And I would always, when I was talking about communication or talking about our words, I would ask the group of students that I was teaching to, I would say, hey, I need two volunteers. And, you know, kids always raise their hand. They always want to do something up front. And so I would call up two volunteers, and these two students, and I would give them a plate. With a tube of toothpaste, then I would say, all right, here's the game: is both of you guys, I'm going to tell you when to start.
And your job is to squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube as fast as possible. And the winner who squeezes it all out the fastest wins. And so they're ready, they're excited, you know, and then all of a sudden I say, go, and they're squeezing as fast as they can. It doesn't take long. And then we have a winner, and they go down, and their friends are cheering for them.
And then I say, all right, I need two more volunteers. And hands go up, we call them up, and we give them the same plate. And we say, now your two job is who can get all the toothpaste back into the tube the fastest. And then they begin to look at you like, that's impossible. We can't do that.
And I'm like, that's exactly right. And that's why our words are important. Because if you're like me, and you know this, Words can never be taken back. You've all been hurt. By words, maybe from a parent.
Maybe from a spouse. And you've been hurt, maybe a sibling or a teacher or a coach or somebody has said something to you that inflicted pain. And here's what we all know: that hurts. But then we've all probably been the person on the other side where we said something. that we knew we shouldn't have.
Or you yelled, or you lost control of your tongue, and you lost all control, and here's what you know. You wish you could go back in time, right? You wish you could take back. What just came out. But just like a tube of toothpaste, once it's out, it ain't going back in.
And once the words that you spoke is out, and the tone in which you spoke it is out, you can't take it back in. And so the Bible gives us, the book of Proverbs, he tells us, hey, we need to heed the warning about the content of our words. You say, what content does he warn us about? Several things. Number one, he warns us about slander.
He warns us about slander. Slander is literally this. It's words used to intentionally damage or destroy a person's reputation. It's when you call somebody and you try to tell them something about somebody else. With the motive of ruining that person's reputation and damaging this person's opinion of this other person.
The Bible talks about it. Proverbs 10:18, he says this: He that hideth hatred with lying lips, And he that uttereth a slanderer is a fool. In Proverbs 6, Solomon's writing about the things that God hates. And the last one that he lists out is when somebody sows discord among The among brothers. And uh that that's slander.
Colossians chapter 3 in the New Testament, Paul, he's listing a bunch of things that being a follower of Jesus, we should put off. And one of those is slander. Listen, slander destroys relationships. Slander destroys reputations. Slander destroys families.
Slander destroys friendships. And slander can destroy churches. We have to be careful that we don't slander because what when we say something intentionally to damage a person's reputation, somebody maybe that we don't like Or somebody that we're jealous of. And so, if we say something over here to this person to get them to think of that person less, we have slandered and it can never. Be taken back.
Many times you can't recover from slanderous words. The second content that he talks about are words that we have to be on guard against is the. Is gossip. It's gossip.
Now, I don't know what your background is. I've grown up around church my whole life. And And like I've been around church people pretty much my entire life. And unfortunately, church people can really fall into this. Problems.
in their life. This idea of gossip. And here's what gossip is: sharing personal rumors, oftentimes unverified, about someone else behind their back. In other words, if I was to go to one of you. And I was to talk about somebody else possibly in this room, but they weren't with us in this conversation.
And I was to try to make you have a less opinion of that person. That's what gossip is. And the Bible warns about it. Proverbs 11:13, a tailbearer revealeth secrets, but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter. Proverbs twenty verse nineteen says, He that goeth about as a tailbearer revealeth secrets, therefore meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips.
The point that Solomon's trying to make about this issue of gossip is he's saying that a trustworthy person keeps secrets. Proverbs is warning us: if you're the person that gets information and you can't keep a secret and you got to run to the next person to tell them. when you hear a rumor. That's a problem. And by the way, here's how church people are bad about it.
We disguise our gospel a lot of times, right? You ever heard somebody in the local church gossip about somebody in the form of a prayer request? They go up to you and they're like, hey, I just want to tell you what I heard about so-and-so so that we can pray for this person. Is that really the motive behind a lot of? But that's how a lot of times church people gossip about certain people within the church and people in the community so that we can, you know, we disguise it by forms of prayer or, you know, being curious or whatever and concerned and that kind of thing.
And listen, here's what I want you to know: if the conversation is negative about somebody else and they're not there. The challenge is What Proverbs 20, 19 tells us, Don't meddle with him. that gossips, or him that flattereth. In other words, what he's saying is don't entertain. The gossip.
Right? Some of you might not be the gossip. But you listen to the gossip. Prime example. when I started out in full-time ministry.
2007 I went back to my home church. And so, this is the church I've grown up in my whole life, this church that I was working at at the time. And so, I knew everybody in the church well, and we ended up going through getting a new pastor. And many of you have heard this story. And so we get a new pastor in.
And when he came in, he was just doing some things, nothing bad, nothing immoral, but he was just making some adjustments and changes and that kind of thing. And the church just didn't like that. And here's what they would do: they would come to me. And they would tell me all the bad things about the pastor and what he's done. And by the way, they had that personality, if you've ever heard it, that said, because he was a new pastor, they would say things like, We've never done it this way, right, before.
Now, Union Grove never has that problem, okay? We never have people that say that, right? And so, but this church, they did. And so, they'd come to me, and so my office was in another building than the pastor's office. And so, what would happen while I was there is people would pop in all the time during the week, and they would sit down in my office, and they would tell me all the bad things about the pastor.
And as a young man in ministry, talking to a lot of people that were older than me at the time. I would just sit there, and I was very intentional that I'm not going to say anything about the pastor to them, but I'm just going to sit there and let their voice be heard and listen to them and that kind of thing. And here's what I'll tell you: what I learned through that whole process is this. When you entertain the gossip just by listening to it, and absorbing the information, you become a part of the problem. Everybody understand that?
So you might not be the one that's running and telling information, but if you're the person that people like to tell information to, Then you're complicit in the whole thing, and we must not, as Proverbs tells us, don't meddle with the gossip. Don't meddle with people that slander. Don't be around people that flatter. Don't give him the time of day. As I look back, what I should have done is said, wait, wait, wait, we're not going to talk about this.
Let's go across the street and let's go to him and let's have a conversation with him in the room so that he can speak to all these different accusations that you're accusing him of. And that's what we should have done, but I didn't.
So here's my point: don't even entertain the gossip. Don't listen to it because here's what I'll tell you is probably true. If they're going to gossip to you about somebody else, They're probably going to gossip about you to somebody else. And so, what we must do is stay away from gossip and stay away from the gossiper.
So that's a slander, gossip. How about this one? Be aware of the content of your words when you speak lies. We all know what a lie is. It's false information about somebody.
The Bible talks about it. Proverbs 12, 22. It says, Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truly are his delight. Proverbs 6, once again, Solomon was listing all the things that God hates. One of those was lying lips.
God is disgusted when you lie about somebody. And by the way, I I would go as far as say this. This includes judging somebody's motives when you don't know what their true motive is. Like, hey, the reason they, like, you go tell somebody the reason I didn't get invited to that is because they think of this of me, right?
Well, do you really know that, or is that just you assuming a motive? We're terrible about accusing people of motives that might not be true and might not be verified. And so don't use your tongue to lie about somebody else, including their motives. Don't assume and falsely accuse that person because God hates it, God hates white lies. A lie, no matter how big or small, is included in this.
And we must be careful when we use our words and use integrity when it comes to our. when it comes to our tongue. The fourth one is flattery. There's several more, but I'm just going to stop at four. But flattery, here's what flattery is: it's the act of giving excessive praise.
Often Insincerely Proverbs 26, 28 warns us, A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it, and a flattering mouth worketh ruin. And so what he's saying is this. Remember, the book of Proverbs is all about the righteous way of living and the foolish way of living. Foolish way, slander. Foolish way, gossip.
Foolish way, lies. Foolish way, flattery. And he's warning about it. That's the content of your words. And so, when you think about your words and you evaluate your words, are you speaking those things?
Are you a gossip? You have a reputation. But you can't be told things. Because people will say if you tell them, everybody will find out. Right?
Don't be a gossip, don't be a slanderer, don't be a flatterer, and don't be somebody that spreads lies. That's the content of your words, but Proverbs also talks about the tone. Watch out for the tone. He says, Watch the tone of your words. Look at what he says about this.
Number one, our tone should be pleasant. Proverbs 16, 24. Says pleasant words. are like a honeycomb, sweet to the soul. And health to the bones.
In other words, your word should be uplifting. Your words should be sweet. Are you one that can't ever speak a positive word, or are you always critical about everything? Make sure that your tongue, because the life of a righteous person is going to speak pleasant. words.
Your tone should be gracious. Proverbs 22:11. He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips. The king shall be his friend. Here's what he's saying: our words as Christians and Christ followers, they should not be condemning words.
They should not be judging words. They cannot be words that assume the worst about other people. But instead, our tone must be grace-filled because we serve a graceful God. And as our heart has been transformed by the power of the gospel, we have experienced His marvelous, amazing grace. And so, therefore, the same grace that was bestowed upon you.
We must use that in our tone. to one another. Your tone should be kind. Proverbs 12, 25, heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop. but a good word maketh it glad.
That phrase good word he literally means a kind word. Listen, it wouldn't hurt you to show some kindness. It wouldn't hurt you to say something positive and affirming to your children, or affirming to your spouse, or affirming to somebody you work with. Proverbs 15.1. A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.
Your tone should be gentle, right? We all know like That I can say To my kids. My son, for example. He loves video games. I don't know if y'all have kids at home that love video games a little too much, but sometimes that's my son.
Plays video games all the time, and so I'll ask him to do something. Just say, hey, come take out the trash or something. And he can tell my tone how serious I am sometimes, right? And then also think about your spouse. You can say the same thing, but if your tone's raised, they know, right?
And so they receive it differently. And sometimes when I'm talking to Abby and my tone is not where it should be, it's not as gracious as it should sound, it's not as gentle as it should be, right? What happens is, she receives something that I'm saying way different because my tone, tone matters. And our tone should be gentle. And he says that a soft answer turneth away wrath.
Here's what he's literally saying. Is when somebody comes to you and they're angry and they have a tone that's yelling and it's way up here and that kind of thing. Typically, what that produces in us is we're going to be angry back. We're going to match their anger and we're going to match their tone and that kind of thing, right? And you begin to talk over one another.
You ever done that with your spouse or whatever? And that kind of thing. But what Proverbs is saying is this: He's saying, wait a second. No, when somebody comes to you with an angry tone, Speak a gentle word to them. And it will a soft answer, it will turn away wrath.
When somebody comes to you fired up and you respond gently, it can actually diffuse anger. But if you respond to anger with anger, it stirs. more anger up. That's why what we say, the content of our words matters. The tone of your words matter.
But number three, the purpose of your words matter. We must evaluate our purpose. Evaluate the purpose of your words. Why are you saying what you're saying? Why did you need to share that information with this person?
Why did you need to go tell them? Because oftentimes our. Our motives aren't pure. Our motives might be self centered. Our motives might be judgmental.
Our motives could be that we're jealous of this person. And so, what we do is we go talk about them to somebody else to make ourselves feel better. And in turn, when we do that, everybody loses.
So we got to evaluate the purpose, and Proverbs talks about that. First, your words should bring healing. not destruction. Thanks again for listening to Union Grove Weekly with Pastor Josh Evans. we would like to invite you to join us in person on a Sunday.
Union Grove is located in the northern Davidson community of Lexington, North Carolina. You can learn more about us, listen to previous sermons, and plan your visit all at our website, ugbchurch.net. We hope you'll join us next week at this same time for Union Grove Weekly.
