who: 6 th -12 th grade students What: 70s themed bunco and game night When: September 4,2013, 6:30-8:30pm Where: Hope Church Cost: $5 radical rags costume competition

…The Power of Words

Words are like feathers, once they are out there’s no getting them back.

From just a handful of scriptures… the tongue is described as wicked, deceitful, perverse, filthy, corrupt, flattering, slanderous, gossiping, blasphemous, foolish, boasting, complaining, cursing, contentions, sensual and vile... and the scary thing is… this is the short list.

Mathew 15:11 What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.

Mathew 15:17 Whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’.

So does this solve it???

How about this??? Can we whip the tongue into shape?

There’s a bigger problem…

If you want to understand the tongue, you must understand the heart Jesus made it very clear that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. (Matthew 24:16)

The Heart is the decision making portion of the mind. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. (Proverbs 12:3 NIV84)

So if the heart is your wellspring of life…and we are supposed to guard it… ABOVE ALL ELSE…, what can we do to protect it? Our eyes and ears are gateways to our hearts…Guard them!

Our desires filtered through our perspectives and values result in our behaviors…(how we speak, what we do, what words we choose throughout a given day.) We must take captive our thoughts and attitudes an make them obedient to God’s word.

The tongue will affect every area of life and every relationship we have. With God With our family (parents, spouse, siblings, children, etc) With our friends, co-workers, etc.

James, a New Testament writer, tells us we should be slow to speak and quick to listen. In fact, he says if we don't keep a tight rein on our tongue our religion is worthless.

Jesus said “I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:36-37)

Proverbs 27:19 NIV84 “ As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man”

James 3:2-12 The Message “We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life. A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse.

A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire.

A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.

This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can't tame a tongue—it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!

My friends, this can't go on. A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?”

NEXT WEEK We continue the series The Power of Words