NATIONAL COMMUNITY CHURCH
NATIONAL COMMUNITY CHURCH
October 3, 2010
Words: Words of Encouragement
Mark Batterson
Next weekend, we kick off a new series called ‘Gospel’ and I think that every weekend is a great weekend to invite someone to National Community Church, but maybe you have a friend is sort of seeking spiritually or asking what Christianity is all about, this would be a such a great series to invite a friend to. So I encourage you to do that next weekend.
This weekend, we wrap up our ‘Words’ series. We’ve been talking about God’s Word and we are going to switch gears a little bit and talk some about our words this weekend. Turn over to James. We’ve just wrapped up Proverbs and we are now going into James this weekend. I want to be very practical and I think we are going to walk away with some tremendous insight into a part of our life that maybe we don’t talk about. We don’t talk about talking as much as we should, so that’s what we are going to talk about. James 3:2
2We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.
Last weekend, we talked about self-control, that it is an exhaustible resource and I shared some ways we can exercise more self-control and that was timely because what James is saying is if there is anything that is difficult to control, it is the tongue. It is the most difficult thing to control. Verse 3
3When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.
That is tough love. If you can read that passage and not be convicted, you just weren’t listening. There is something in there for everybody. It’s one of those passages that’s tough to read but I’ve found that the tougher a passage is to read, probably the more important it is to talk about because there is some difficult truth we need to grapple with and if we do, it might help us more than those passages that are easier to read.
The word ‘tame’ is a reference to animal trainers who are experts at domesticating wild animals or ferocious beasts. Now, wild animals generally kill you, right? But the skilled animal trainers have the ability to turn them into house pets. I think it is interesting that James choses this particular word and I think I have a couple of observations up front.
First of all, the tongue is dangerous! I think we’ve got to recognize that.
Secondly, it is hard to tame. It is no easy task. It is easier said than done. I worked hard at this, please appreciate my puns! It takes time to come up with these things!
Finally, it doesn’t happen without a skilled attempt. I think we want this to just happen naturally and easy and then if it doesn’t, we don’t even try. I wonder how many of us have really made a concerted effort to tame our tongue. How many of us have actually worked on our listening skills with intentionality? How many of us have cultivated the art of speaking an encouraging word at the right time? Did you have a class in this? I did not have a class in this? And yet it is so vitally important. So, this weekend, we are going to talk about taking the tongue. I know this is strong language but can I speak a word of encouragement? It wouldn’t be here if God didn’t want us to work on it. I think that we can make some progress in this area.
I saw an example of it Monday night. I made a huge mistake. I’m a Packers fan. What was I thinking? I invited some Bears fans over to watch the game. I’ll tell you why I did it, because I was sure the Packers were going to win. But they didn’t, so it got pretty boisterous and we were making a lot of noise, a little bit of trash talk, then I realized that my two sons share a bedroom about 10 feet from the family room where we were watching the game and we must’ve been waking them up every play. At half time, I told the guys that we were going to have to dial down the volume. Here’s the deal, John Hassler, who is on our staff, he is going to lead our Germany launch as we look to do a café in Berlin in 2011, John is the most rabid Bears fan you could ever meet. So at halftime, we have to do silent celebrating. Don’t tell me miracles don’t still happen. It took every ounce of self-control that they had, but when the Packers fumbled in the fourth quarter and the Bears recovered, I wish I had video of how silly these Bear fans looked as they silently danced around. They couldn’t yell so they were doing their silent celebrating. It was amazing, they tamed their tongues! Even Bears fans can tame their tongues! So, if they can do it, there is hope for you!
I believe that there are some principles in the Proverbs and in James that we are going to draw on that I think are really going to help us this weekend. I’m going to share four things. You are going to have to take a lot of notes this weekend. I’m going to share four things and I only want you to do one of them. I guess you could do all four, but I’m going to encourage you not to get overwhelmed by changing everything immediately. I believe that as I talk, the Holy Spirit is going to let you know which one of these you need to work on. Then I want to encourage you to go to work on it.
Here are the four up front so that you get them in your system.
Number one – listen longer.
Number two – brag differently.
Number three – criticize wisely.
Number four – encourage more.
Some of you immediately know which one you need to do without me even talking about it because the Holy Spirit is really good at his job, which is convicting. Some of you don’t know, but we’ll get there. So let’s talk about these four things.
Listen longer. I’m going to cheat a little bit and go back to Chapter 1 of James, verse 19. This is a verse that everybody ought to memorize.
Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.
This is where most of us suffer from spiritual dyslexia. We are quick to speak and so slow to listen. How do we change that? I think there are a couple of ways we can do that. But the big idea here is some of us just need to listen longer. And I think that in some ways, this is a reflection of what’s in our spirit. I’m going to make some observations about human nature that I think are biblical. Some of them are experiential but I think they are truth. I honestly think that how much you speak and how much you listen is a reflection of pride and humility. I know some folks who love to talk, and in a sense, they love to talk because they are full of themselves. But those who love to listen, there seems to be a spirit of humility because they want to learn, and the way you learn is by listening.
I saw an example of this a couple weeks ago. It actually drove me crazy. A few pastor friends spent 24 hours with Pastor Andy Stanley. I love Andy. He is a great writer and a great pastor. He pastors North Point Church in Atlanta. It was a rare opportunity for me to hang out with someone I really look up to and I couldn’t wait to hear Andy talk. About half way in, I was like, ‘Andy, would you please talk?’ I didn’t actually say that, but all he was doing was asking questions. And at some point, I thought, I’m here to listen to him and all he is doing is listening to us. Hm, I wonder if that’s why I want to listen to him, because he is really good at listening. I think someone with wisdom and with humility has tempered their tongue and have trained their ears to just be a good listener. I want to say something. I think this is encouraging. Sometimes we feel like we’ve got to have profound words for our friends, for example, who are going through a tough time, peer-to-peer counseling or whatever. I don’t think that’s true. I just think you have to be really good at listening. Are you willing to deeply listen to someone? That, my friend, is such a wonderful gift that we give to another person.
And I think we’ve got to be strategic. Here’s a thought, our marriages would be a little bit better if we listened a little bit more; our kids might be a little bit more communicative if we actually listened to them instead of always talking to them. So how do we do that? I was thinking about it this week because I always felt like I could talk to my parents. That’s not always the case.
When I was in Junior High, several times a week, my mom would take me to Baskins Robbins. Anybody like Baskins Robbins? So, I’m in Junior High and my mom takes me there several times a week and I would get a Rainbow Sherbet in case you care. We’d get it and we’d get in the car and we’d drive around. We wouldn’t go right home, we’d drive around for 20 or 25 minutes. I didn’t have any idea what she was doing. But now that I’m a parent with kids that age, I think I know what she might have been doing. She might have been very strategically creating scenarios to have conversations and to listen, to keep that channel of communication open. I’ve learned, with one of my children, to back scratch. They get a lot of back scratching because then I know I’ve got their ear and more importantly, they have my ear. I don’t know what it is in the relationship that you’re in, but I think there is something about being strategic. Something about sitting on a porch or taking a walk, those mechanisms can create scenarios where we just listen to each other more intently and more deeply. I want to be careful here. I hope I don’t have a gender bias but it is interesting in the studies that I’ve read, and I think this is generally true, that women tend to use about 25-30% more words per day. Obviously that is not always true, but studies I’ve seen generally women have a few more words to use. Does this resonate with you? But here’s the problem, its women who sometimes talk a little bit more but they also tend to be the better listeners. So guys, Lord help us! We need to be more intentional in just deeply listening, listening longer. So maybe James 1:19 is your take away this weekend. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.
Let’s talk about number two, brag differently. Verse 5 in James 3 says: likewise the tongue is a small part of the body but it makes great boasts. It sure does, doesn’t it. We’ve just read through the Proverbs and there are a couple kinds of boasting that I want to touch on because I have personal experience with them. First is this, Proverbs 27:2 says: Don’t praise yourself, let others do it. I think the kind of bragging we need to avoid is bragging about ourselves. I had a friend a few years ago, I bet you have a friend like this, that, I don’t know how to say this, but it was so over the top and really bordering on embarrassing for them, but this personality that you could never have a conversation without them bragging about something. Part of me wanted to silly slap him a little bit and say, ‘Do you not realize how this is coming across?’ Here is the plain truth – our attempts to impress other people are unimpressive, but if you want to impress people, just don’t worry about impressing them at all. Now that is impressive. I don’t even know how to describe this but it is like someone who gets drunk and acts like an idiot and you wish you could show them an instant replay. Bragging about yourself is always counter-productive and what it reveals is deep-seeded insecurities in your heart. So, I think if you brag about yourself, you need to deal with some of those insecurities and honestly, you need to find your security in a relationship with Jesus Christ, who has redeemed you. That’s the bottom line.
There’s a second kind of bragging that I think we need to avoid. One is bragging about yourself and the second one is almost a cousin, if you will. Proverbs 27:1 says: Don’t brag about tomorrow. This one I really take personally. I haven’t mastered any of this stuff, but when I was a young church planter, I didn’t have anything to bring about past tense, I hadn’t done anything. So one of my tough moments of self-evaluation revealed that I did a lot of bragging about what I would do, future tense. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there but it was a season in my life, given our demographics as a congregation, I think this is something that we need to guard ourselves against. Here’s what happened, the first church plant that I attempted during seminary went belly up. I fell flat on my face. I can’t tell you though how many people I had told what we were going to do. I had bragged about it. I learned a painful lesson, that when you brag about the future, you are going to embarrass yourself. I made a decision, it was one of those wrestling matches like Jacob where you walk away with a little bit of a limp but I walked away asking God to help me be the kind of person that I just let my life speak for itself. I need to stop bragging about tomorrow. Some of you just need to let your life speak for itself. James 4:13-16 says it this way:
13Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.
So, here’s what I tried to do in my own life and let me put it in words that I often speak, I pray that God would give me the privilege of pastoring one church for life, this church. But you also need to know that when I communicate it, I’m very careful to say that if God would give me the privilege or if the Lord would be so gracious, or if it is part of God’s plan and purpose, or if it is the Lord’s will, I pray for the privilege of serving this church for the rest of my life. I’m very careful in choosing that language and I’ll tell you why – because I don’t control tomorrow. I don’t control the next day. It is out of my control and it is up to God. I can’t predict it, I can’t control it, so in a sense, with my words, I want to submit myself to the Lordship of Christ. So I want to be very careful how I frame tomorrow. So, don’t brag about yourself and don’t brag about the future.
Is there an alternative? I think there is. I think we’ve got to boast a lot more about God and who He is and what He has done in our lives. So let me give you a couple of definitions. I believe that worship is bragging about God to God. That’s how I think about worship. Let’s come together and brag about God to God. Then, the beautiful thing is, it doesn’t stop when we leave. Then it becomes something called evangelism. Worship and evangelism are so seamlessly connected because evangelism is bragging about God to others. So we start out by bragging about God to God and then we just keep bragging about Him to others. Then we come back together and brag about God to God and then to others. It is this cycle in our lives and I think we could all stand to boast about God a lot more than we do.
Listen longer, brag differently and number three, criticize wisely. Verse 9
9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.
It is interesting that James likens the tongue to deadly poison. Did you pick up on that? It is interesting in light of the metaphor. I’m no snake handler but the difference between a poisonous snake and non-poisonous snake, based on my understanding of it, it is impossible to tame a poisonous snake because by nature they are very nervous and they are easily agitated and there is almost this reflex where venom is spewed. I think criticism is much the same way. I think critical words, I’m not talking about a holy rebuke or constructive criticism, we’ll talk about that in a moment, but I think critical words that are spoken out of our own anger or our own insecurity or ill will, I think just like venom gets into a blood stream, I think critical words are like venom that get into our stream of conscience. Has someone ever said something and two days later, you are still stewing on it? It gets in your mind and gets in your spirit and it is like venom. We’ve got to be so careful in the way we criticize.
Let me flip the coin. I’m going to give you seven keys to healthy and holy criticism and I think one of these is going to speak to you. So, let me run through these.
Number one – speak softly. Proverbs 25:15 says soft speech can crush strong opposition.
I would encourage you to pay attention to the volume with which you are speaking. I can promise you this, the higher the volume, the less control you have of your spirit and the way you are responding to someone. The higher the volume, probably the less effective it is going to be.
Number two – discern the readiness of the person you are talking to. This is a beautiful truth. Proverbs 26:4-5, it used to be a verse that made no sense to me. In fact, I thought it was one of those contradictions in Scripture, but check this out:
Do not answer a fool according to his folly or you will be like him yourself. [Then the very next verse says] Answer a fool according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes.
Ok, so which one is it? Do not answer a fool or answer a fool? You want to know which one it is? When you are arguing with a fool, you can’t win. It doesn’t matter whether you speak or say silent because they are a fool. Listen to me, there are some arguments you cannot win because of the character of the person you are speaking to. You need to be aware of that. Here’s where it gets very interesting, I think sometimes we speak words that we think are constructive but we do it to get something off of our chest. Instead of having the level of maturity to discern where that person is and their readiness to receive what it is that we have to say. And because we say it at the wrong time, the defenses just get stronger and the walls go higher. Listen to this, John 16:12, this is such an insightful verse. This is Jesus speaking; he is talking to the disciples. He says: I have so much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. I hope that you understand what an incredible truth this is. Jesus has so much more to say to the disciples but there were moments when He restrained what He had to say because they couldn’t bear it. This is no easy thing but you’ve got to discern where that other person is at.
Number three – time your words carefully. Proverbs 27:14
If you shout a pleasant greeting to your neighbor too early in the morning, it will be counted as a curse.
Ha ha! How many of you night owls say Amen! You’ve got to time it.
Number four – praise before you criticize. My friends, this is not manipulation, this is just a pattern in Scripture. If you read the seven letters to the churches in Revelation and they are so critical, like if you are luke warm, I’m going to spit you out of my mouth. But none of them start that way. They all start with an affirmation. Why? Because the writer of those letters wanted to make sure they would be listening. How do you know that someone is listening? If you praise them, I promise you both ears will be wide open! I think sometimes you’ve to compliment someone in a way that it opens up their spirit and then they are ready to receive the criticism. I’m don’t do this much, but two personal friends this week sent me manuscripts that they wanted me to look at, and I felt like I owed it to them to take a little time and give them some constructive criticism. I’m not doing them any favors if I just tell them it is perfect and needs no editing whatsoever. But in my response to them, I tried to affirm their voice and what I discerned as unique gifts that they have as writers. There is tremendous potential there, but then I followed it up with some things that they need to be aware of and look at. I shared some praise and then some editing criticism. I think we’ve got to learn to do that.
Number five – if you wouldn’t say it when they are present, don’t say it when they are absent. Ouch!
Number six – look in the mirror first. You want to know the best way to criticize someone? Criticize yourself first. A little humor at your own expense can open other people up to hear what you have to say because then you are not speaking from on high, you are speaking from a place of humility.
Number seven – don’t criticize what you aren’t willing to solve. Don’t just criticize something in someone and say good luck with that. That’s weak and there is no point to it. You need to be the solution to whatever it is that you are criticizing.
I hope those things help. I hope you jotted down one or two of them that can help you be more effective.
Finally, number four – encourage more. This is where I believe we have so much potential to make sure a great impact with our words. You know the old saying, sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Is that like the most untrue truism in the world! It is so not true. Words are powerful, both positive and negative. They can hurt you or they can heal you. They are powerful things. According to Lorie Beth Jones, 40% of our lives are based on personal prophesies. I don’t think you can quantify that to a decimal point, but I think the way we see ourselves, a lot of our lives are predicated upon some words that have been spoken to us, some positive and some negative and we have taken those things to heart and we begin to live out what those prophetic words were. One of the things I believe God for in my own life is that I would be a prophet for my children; that the words I speak, that I would speak words of encouragement and words of life. I believe that as the pastor of this church and as an employer, or with a roommate, we just need to pray that God would help us be more aware of opportunities to give a word of encouragement.
In light of the fact that the word ‘tame’ is about animal training, I find it interesting how trainers train animals. They don’t do it by ‘don’t do that and don’t do this’ or by punishing every wrong behavior. It is called approximation. What they do is they positively reinforce a tiny little improvement in behavior as they begin to approximate the ultimate behavior that they want to see displayed. How can we do that with animals and then, oh but that won’t work with humans? It will work with humans. By the way, a woman named Amy Sutherland took those principles and applied them to marriage. There’s an idea. I love the title of this article: What Shamoo taught me about a happy marriage. It was all about how she trained her husband. We’re not sure if it was more difficult than training monkeys but real close. But praise every step in the right direction. I have a file in my desk that dates all the way back to when I began in ministry of notes of encouragement. I keep them. I got one this week. I read them. Mark Twain said, “I can live two months on one compliment.” Why can’t we be that one compliment? Why can’t we be perceptive enough to be able to read the people around us and discern when they need that word of encouragement?
One last verse, Ephesians 4:29 is one of my favorite verses. We had our kids memorize it.
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen.
The reason I love it is because it is such a great word picture. The word ‘unwholesome’ is a reference to rotten food. Unwholesome foods are rotten. It is like forcing someone to eat food that is rotten. But the word ‘benefit’ that it may benefit those who listen, this is the same word in Greek that is translated as grace or gift. So the way I think about this verse is that your words may be a gift to those who listen. We need to choose our words wisely and find those words of encouragement and wrap them up and give them as a gift to the people around us.
I’m not sure where you need to focus. Some of you need to listen longer. What if both husband and wife determine that their big thing this week is to listen longer? I’m envisioning lots of awkward silences for long periods of time. Seriously, some of you it might be to brag differently. You need to quit bragging about yourself and you need to start boasting in the grace of God. For some of us, it is criticizing wisely. We speak careless words and we just speak to get them off of our chest but we need to be like an animal trainer that tames our tongue and we need to know when the timing is right and we need to discern the readiness of the other person. We need to get in the habit of praising someone before we criticize them. We need to practice it. And for some of us, it is encouraging more. I’m not sure what it is for you, but let me close with this thought.
What if there was a stenographer that literally had a transcript of everything you’ve ever said? And that transcript was read, if they entire transcript of your life was put into Wordle, it weights the words, what would it look like? I’m not here to get anybody super depressed. I think this is pretty convicting for some of you. There are some words that would show up that oh that should not be there, but I think it is something we need to think about. How many gaps would be in that transcript that represent listening to other people? How many of them, if we weighted how much we bragged about ourselves and how much we bragged about God, which word would be bigger? What about criticism? How many words would be laced with an anger motivated criticism? And how many words of encouragement have we spoken to people? Are there a lot of them or a few of them? The good news is – it’s not about past tense, we are a church focused on future tense. What we care about is what God is going to do in your life tomorrow. We’ve never been a church to beat you up about what you did yesterday because his mercies are new every morning.
I just think sometimes you have to have a tough talk about talk. You’ve got to analyze your language and you’ve got to look at the transcript of your life. And the truth is, if scientists had technology that was capable of doing it, every word you’ve ever spoken could be retrieved, because it is a sound wave somewhere in the universe. That thought has always been profound to me and I’ve always thought about it in terms of prayer, that my prayers are eternal, in a sense. You can’t tell me that when God rolls up the planet like a scroll and there is a new heaven and a new earth that it is beyond God’s ability to roll up the scroll of your transcript. Now the good news is forgiveness covers everything, words, thoughts and actions. I think sometimes we don’t think about how nuisance God’s forgiveness is, but I think on a weekend like this, I’m grateful for God’s forgiveness. I was once a foreman on a jury and I remember those moments of ‘strike that from the record’ and it would be stricken from the record. Of course the problem was that we had already heard it. There is nothing that God won’t strike from the record this weekend. So be encouraged but let’s evaluate our words in light of the book of James and see if we can’t speak in a way that is more glorifying to God. Let’s pray together.
Father, we thank You for the truth of your word that speaks into our lives that helps us know how to live and how to change and what is right and what is wrong. God I thank You for your words that You have spoken into our lives and I pray that as we close this series, that the words You’ve spoken to us would influence the words we speak to each other. God I pray that our tongues would be tamed and that our mouths would be sanctified and that the auditory cortex as some of those words are formulated that even within the synapsis of the deep recesses of our minds that You would begin to reshape us and that we would be renewed by your words and that the transcripts of our lives from this day forward would be more reflective of your goodness and your glory and that our words would truly honor You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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