Ephesians 4 verse 29, the Apostle Paul writes, Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Let's pray and ask the Lord to help us. Lord, we come before You once more just to ask for Your blessing once more, to ask for Your help, to ask for You to help us understand Your Word, help us to see how it needs to wash us and cleanse us, and to You be our Husband now and wash Your bride with the water of the Word, and clean us all, Lord, from the world, and help us to see how we need to live, Lord. And we pray and ask You to do this this morning, sincerely and genuinely, in Jesus' name, Amen. It's hard to think that it's been 30 years ago, 1992, when this movie came out called Aladdin, but they did make a remake of it, so presumably most of us have seen probably both. of these, at least one, but amongst all the memorable scenes on that movie, there was one at the very beginning you may remember played a role throughout called the Cave of Wonders. And it begins, you may remember, a dark night where a dark man waits with a dark purpose. And he has this thing that is bug and it turns into the two eyes and there arises the cave of wonders and there's this, quote, humble thief there to go in and get this lamp that he's after and The tiger cave sculpture there says that only one may enter here, one who's worthy, basically. And the man wants to enter and so he says, proceed. Well, upon proceeding into the mouth of the tiger, you know, because he was unworthy, he was not allowed to proceed out. of the mouth of the tiger. So only one may enter here, clearly meant also only one may exit here. In Ephesians 4.29 is a call to make your mouth, a call for me to make my mouth like the mouth of the cave of wonders. Its main point could be stated as simply this, instead of words proceeding from your mouth that corrupt, change into words that proceed from your mouth that build up. Those words, change into, are purposeful. You need to remember the context of this, lest we become totally moralistic and this become no different than anyone today who's telling someone to simply do something good. So contextually, just generally, remember verses 17 to 24 that have set up this command. where Paul, in essence, says in verse 17, he gives us the instruction to not live like the world, to walk differently than the Gentiles, and then he proceeds to give us two reasons. The main one, the most significant one, in verses 20 to 24, is because of who you are. He tells us essentially to, maybe you haven't even been taught this, he says, if you've heard, if you know who you are, if you've been taught to think right about yourself, but you are to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, basically remember who you are, and then be who you are, and he uses this imagery of clothing, wonderful analogy to just remember. It's just so wonderful that it's an easy analogy to remember such a profound truth. But the idea is, if you're a Christian, Paul is saying God has already changed you on the inside. Your job is simply to change your ways on the outside to correspond to what He's already done on the inside. And so he uses the imagery of clothing, the idea that you may put something on and you say, is this flattering to me? What you mean is, is this fitting? Does this look like it goes on me? We all know there's things you could put on that don't look like. They go on, and then there's things that you feel comfortable in. This is fitting. This is me, we say. And Paul uses this analogy to basically say there are deeds that correspond and are fitting. There are ways of life. that are fitting to who you really are. So you may think of Cinderella where she changes into clothing that actually fits who she really is in the story. The idea is that she's such a person that she really shouldn't be wearing these rags. She really should be wearing this beautiful dress. So, We mentioned in context for Paul to even give this command though in verse 17 implies that you could fall back into an old sinful pattern of behavior. Otherwise, why give it? We don't need to be told to do things that are impossible not to do. And so the thing to do if you fall back, when you fall back into an old pattern of living is number one, not to say, I guess this is just who I am. You are what you do. Paul did not agree with that. No, you're not. No, you're not. It's possible to fall back. It's possible to be like Peter and to gather with the very people who are mocking Christ and gather around the coals of fire and tell a bald-faced lie and say, I don't know the man. And yet, that's not who Peter was. He was being contrary to himself, to who he really was. So, the first trick that we fall into is we start living just like the world, and then we get discouraged and we think, well, I guess this is just who I am. Maybe I'm not even a Christian. And if you have a sorry comforter, like Job to come by, he takes a quick look at your life and says, yeah, look lost to me. And then you're just further down into the dump. But that's not a good initial reaction. Nor number two, to say, let me now go and do something to prove myself. Let me go conquer a sin, so that I will now, okay, I know I am. Let me go say no to this, or yes to this, or we fall into that error. It's still focusing on the outward act. But Paul's instructions, look at it in verse 23, is to start with the internal, to not even start with doing anything, but to start with remembering who you are, that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And then when you go to change, you have this imagery of putting on clothing that fits what God has already recreated on the inside. Which can just be summed up as the Christian method to growth and grace is two steps. Number one, realize who you are. Number two, then go and be who you are. Basically, unfold like a transformer. The world has their forms of coming out, Paul's ethics for Christians is coming out. The idea is you go to the convenience store, you stand in line, you look just like the other guy. And Romans 8 says the whole creation is waiting for the revealing of the sons of God, which means the sons of God look just like the sons of the evil one right now. We both have arms. We both have legs. You don't have a halo. There's no radiance around you, surrounding you. You look just like the other guy. But you're not like the other guy. There is a difference on the inside. And He's saying, come out and be who you are. So, the Christian life is not a call to become something. God already did that if you're a Christian. The Christian life, the part that you do, is simply to change into different ways on the outside that correspond to who you already are on the inside. And listen to this, if you do one good deed from a different perspective, it's not even a Christian good deed. It's a pagan work. Think of that. You do one good deed to try to become something, you have fallen into pagan thought. It is all to be done with first realizing who I am. It's not, I'm not this, so let me become this. It is, I am this, so let me just be who I naturally, organically am. Now that's the general exhortation that he gave in verses 17 and 24, but then at the turn of verse 25, where he says, therefore, so you see the connection, but he begins to be specific and he says, laying aside this, so he starts getting specific. And he starts going through specific dirty clothes that your heart don't like, that doesn't fit you. And he says, basically, sling this off and put this on. Basically have a Cinderella transformation come out of this garment and put on this garment because it feels good because you hate the other garment. It's not you. So you get that idea. It's a wonderful image. So deeds and speech and ways of life are viewed by Paul as clothing that either fits or doesn't fit a heart. So he began mentioning in verse 25, this is why you have a replacement. All of them are positive and negative. Another error. You can tell you've fallen into pagan thought when you start saying, let me not do this, or let me do do this. Either one of those is an error. Their truth is both, always both, replacement. So he says, the first specific is, instead of lying, change into truth-telling. When you lie, you're not being who you are. You're a different person. It's impossible to tell a lie and be happy if you're a Christian. You will be miserable with yourself because you're by nature of the truth. It totally goes against your nature to lie and deceive people. So you'll be miserable. So he says, throw that off. Do you ever have clothing on and maybe you're working in the rain and it got soggy and then it dried and then you're back out in the rain and you're just in these wet clothes or you have that feeling of like you step in water or something. when you leave the house. And now you just have to wear this all day. You just can't wait to just get this thing off of you. If that's how you think of sin, I mean, that's a strong indication that you're a believer. Like, wretched man that I am, when can I get this off of me? And so, he says specifically, throw off lying, throw this dirty garment from you, and put on truth-telling. Second, he told us, instead of out-of-control anger, change into controlled anger. And just by way of reminder, because I forgot to mention this, verse 26, I did briefly, but be angry means it's not a sin to be angry. To be controlled by your anger rather than you control it is the idea. Which most of the time we do lose control with anger. But if you can look, I use that analogy of several months ago where the woman was abused physically. for prudence, leave the rest of it out at night on the subway in Philadelphia. And the other passengers just sat there and watched because they didn't want to get into it or involved in it. And she was humiliated and abused right there in front of everybody, right there in the subway. Now, if you can look at a person being destroyed like that and you don't get angry, that's not a virtue, that's a vice. Like, you should be angry. You should be angered at the person who did it and angered at the persons who sat there and didn't do anything about it. So who are the people in your life that you see destroyed by sin and grief and misery? If something in you doesn't become angry about that and want to fix that, there's something wrong with you. But if you're a Christian, you do have that. you do have the ability to have righteous anger, to have just grief and anger about destruction and misery and to want to fix it. So he says, put away this pagan anger of out of control, flippant, flying off the handle. Remember I said Jesus, when He made a scourge of cords, that means He made a whip. He sat there and wove a whip I mean, this was not an outburst, this was controlled, getting ready, getting ready, getting ready, and he apparently made a good one, and went in there, and when it was done, and he did his business. But that's controlled anger, rather than being controlled by it. So he says, throw that off, put on controlled anger. And the third one we saw, instead of working hard to take from others, change into working hard to give to others. Manual labor text, verse 28. He assumes that some of these Christians were skilled thieves. They gave their ingenuity and their creativity to taking from other people. And now he says, use your ingenuity and your creativity to be an entrepreneur or to work hard and to save and to make more than what you and your family even need to have a stash that you could be ready when there's a need to contribute to it. Live that kind of fulfilled life. And he says, if you're a real Christian, that's what you really want to do. That's what would make you happy. So pursue happiness and work that way. So those are the three that we've seen. And now we come to the fourth specific change into today of clothing. Paul says, change into or change out from words proceeding from your mouth that corrupt. Throw that like a garment from you and put on words coming out of your mouth that build up. Now as with the other three, Paul continues the pattern with this one. With the other three, he first gave the response and then a reason for the response. He does the same thing here. You notice after giving the response about these preceding words, he gives a reason, so that it will give grace to those who hear. So first of all then, let's just take the part of the statement, instead of words proceeding from your mouth that corrupt. And I'll tell you at the beginning, the things we're about to look at, for being crammed into one verse, reading it in its proper context, I think this is an amazing text. First of all, notice what Paul is talking about is having a word in your heart, but it's not yet let out. You have to have a word in your heart, but it's not yet let out. Because he says, don't let it out. It's there, but don't let it out. Second, the kind of word he's thinking about, he gives the adjective unwholesome. which if you look the words up means corrupt. It's the one where Jesus used about the tree being corrupt and it bears bad, corrupt fruit. So if you have a rotted tree, the fruit that comes out of it ends up being rotted and squishy and nasty and corrupt. So you can think of fruit on the bar that has gone bad and it just seeps through the whole pile, or you can think of a loaf of bread and it just goes through all the slices eventually. If the soul were like a piece of fruit or a piece of bread, words coming into it from another mouth are pictured like rotted fruits or rotted pieces of bread rubbing up against it that corrupt the soul. Words hit your soul, and if they rub up against it enough, they corrupt the soul. That's the idea. So Paul pictures these words that we have in our heart as corrupt and they're trying to get out. He uses the phrase, from your mouth. Don't let it proceed from your mouth. So the mouth is like a door, like an exit. And I thought, man, of this one, Abram is always sometimes at our house, he just goes to the door, and all our doors are like noodles, because he just yanks on the door when he's wanting to get out. He just goes in and is yanking, and you can't get over there fast enough. And the idea is, Paul is saying that there are words within me that are yanking to get out. that there are statements that I have in my mind that are just wanting to blurt out and tell this person, and he says, don't let them out. Do not let the statement out. And I thought, you know, I've been around long enough, watched people and myself wrestle with Scripture and Christianity long enough, there's a response that we're tempted to make right now that says something to the effect of, but I thought I need to be authentic. And see, that's the thing. Like I'm not fake. That's why I tell people what I, and that's a good thing to not be fake and to tell people. So that's the thing. I'm just not fake. That's why I tell people what I think. And we were watching Cinderella last night, the remake, and there was this scene where her father wanted to get remarried. Her mother had died, and the father went to kind of break the news to Cinderella, and she saw where this was fisting to go, and you could see her kind of gulp, and it stung. And then you could see her sort of get herself together and be happy for her father because she wanted him. He was like, do you think I could have one more? And she's like, yes. Now I ask you, was she being fake? To some degree. Did she tell him the word that was in her heart? No. And if you want to just define fakeness flatly, then there's a sense in which, yes, she was being fake. But if you define it that way, we can say this about it. Sometimes being fake is right. Sometimes being authentic is rude. That's why you can have movies about someone who had like a brain injury and then they tell everybody what they think and it's funny or hurtful or whatever because we know it's not righteous to just walk into a room and to speak every single word that comes into your mind. You would kill all of your relationships if you did. You would have no friends if you did that. So, because actually holding in an evil word should be a very authentic thing to do, actually, ironically. Because who you really are is a loving person, if you're a Christian. And that means the most authentic thing you could ever do is show love to another person. So if withholding this thought would be loving to another person, actually I'm being authentic by being fake. I'm being authentic. I'm getting pleasure out of not revealing the thought that is in my mind. Because I don't want to tear this other person down. My second objection to this teaching, which I thought of, has come up in our day, which apparently some Christians have fallen into, is it's okay to cuss. It's okay to cuss. Some of you may even know Jeff Durbin has done this. I think Toby Sumpter wrote an article about this, and a lot of us appreciate Doug and Canon Press and all that. But I just simply want you to look at the word and notice how negative Paul is about this. He uses the negative adverb, no. No unwholesome word come out. That's a universal negative. No unwholesome words are words that are to come out of your mouth. That's equivalent to saying it's not the case that there are some unwholesome words that can come out. Toby says you have three or four F-bombs that you could use at different points in your Christian life. Paul says let no unwholesome words... It is not the case that you have a few F-bombs. Zero unwholesome words to come out. Then the response is that it's only a cultural convention. These words really have no meaning, they're just given meaning. So is opening the door, but you do that. So is wearing a wedding ring, but I see you have that on. Don't play that game. These are the words, every culture has words that mean these filthy things. These vulgar expressions. So whatever culture we're in, whatever there's... The thing is, if you're having to constantly tell people to not be offended because the word you're using really has no meaning, it's like, just stop. Like love does not act unbecomingly. That ends it right there. It doesn't even matter if the whole culture is wrong. There's something more important than being right about your word etymology and origin, and that's loving people. And so Paul says over and over, have respect for what is right in the sight of all men. Romans 12. That means, you know, lick your finger and put the feeler out there. Like if taking off the shoes at the door is proper, and walking through the house is going to offend these people, am I going to lecture them about, well, y'all also walk? No, take the shoes off. Right? Just serve people. That's the idea. But this is how some have fallen into it. And it's understandable because they are right in a sense. It is a cultural convention, some of it. But the thing to always ask is, does it corrupt the minds that I'm speaking to? And I'm sorry. There's no way in the American culture to use F-bombs from a pool pit and not corrupt the people who are listening. If it corrupts them, there's nothing else to be asked. Paul says don't use it. Another application here, which is very interesting to me because I've been averse from this ever since the early days of being a Christian. You know, if anyone ever talks about TV or social media, it's like, legalism alert, legalism alert, like you just immediately like, okay, he's a good brother, he's excited, but he don't know that that's legalism. And then you end up to where no one ever says anything about it, but it seems to me, you test it out, it seems to me, coming full circle back here, that there is an application for TV and social media here. If you're not to let any words out of your mouth that corrupt others, are you to let them out of the TV and corrupt? It's not just my words or your words, it looks like words in general is the idea. The idea is beware of corrupting speech. Don Johnson was mentioning he's going to be here. I, like y'all have, some of y'all do. Man, what a treat y'all are in for. He is an exciting guy. But genuine, genuine and edifying to hear. But he, Jeffrey Johnson, who you heard his son preach at the last conference, has told the story that when he was a kid, A teenager, him and some friends were in the house and they were watching some movie and the Lord's name was being used in vain or whatever. He said his dad comes flying out. If you know Don, you won't take this wrong. He's just an energetic guy. And he's small, so it's kind of funny. He's like a Ray Comfort type with his energy. Anyway, he comes flying out of the hallway into the living room. He said, not in my house. Turn it off. And Jeffrey Johnson said, of course it embarrassed him at the time and everything. He said, but now looking back on it, he thinks, oh, that I would have that kind of zeal for this night. Coming out into my soul and my children's soul, your soul can become so dirty and ruined and filthy just from watching one movie on Netflix, it can become so filthy. You know it can. It can just become dirty and filthy. And Paul says, look, even if you say, Piper said one time, you ask, well, is it a sin? He said, what a low-aiming question. Is it a weight? Is it a hindrance? He says in Hebrews, lay aside every weight and the sin. So does it help me see Christ? Does it put my soul in the right disposition to love people and minister to people? Or does it just put me in a filthy, squalid, rotted state? Then just begin to sling it from you, perhaps. And parents need to know what their children are watching. I mean, would you put the trash beside your evening meal? No, because you're going to eat that. But you put your child's soul beside the filth of the world and are surprised when they become worldly, it will corrupt them. That's what Paul is saying. It's not it might, it will. It will. And not only them. Parents need to do it too. They need to imitate. This thing of like children growing up where parents are like, well, we can watch this movie and you can't. I understand there are certain ones that that applies to. But if you're just watching worldly filth, well, that's not going to work. They're going to imitate that and it's going to corrupt them. Now, instead of that dirty clothing, Paul says, change into words proceeding from your mouth that build up. And this is perhaps a better spot to dwell. When I was talking to Trevor, he was like, yeah, I've heard messages. I'm kind of interested in the positive side to kind of think about what kind of words should come out of your mouth. So here's this part. This but signifies the shift here. Paul says, but only such a word, he goes on to say. Now notice again how exclusive he is. Only such a word as. Again, this is saying all the words that you speak, you heard him right, all the words that come out of your mouth should be the kind I'm about to tell you. It's again, it's like the cave of wonder saying, only one may enter here, and only one may exit here, a diamond, the one who's worthy. So again, we're being told that it's exclusive. It's really amazing. There's an application here for marriage, for friendships, work relationships. What do you mean? Well the fact that you're close with someone is not a license to speak dirty and filthy about others. Marriage is not a license. Now that's the most intimate and the most real and the most honest and that should be there. But you still have to be careful. You can begin to fall into gossip and slander. Same thing with any close relationship. You can begin to talk about other people too much. How do you know? Well, look at what kind of words he says. He says words that are good. Well, that's always easy, right? Everybody always says, well, it is good that I had to say this. Well, let's see. He defines it. You see, as with the cussing or gossiping scenarios, we'll of course always claim that we're doing it for good. No one's going to say, oh, I'm just trying to hurt people, that's why I'm doing it. No, they're going to say, this is good, it's achieving some good. But what I want you to see is Paul goes on to specifically define and identify what goodness is. It's not left up to me to fully specify. And he identifies it with two descriptors. One is that it's an edifying word. Now we know this, a church word most have heard, it means to build up. Now let me ask you, what has to be the case, what does the world have to be like if we're called to speak to people in such a way that we build them up? What kind of world is necessary for a command like that to be real? A world where people are shattered. A world where people It's like Rose on the Titanic and the whole table's been turned over and the other lady comes by there to help her pick up, like an earthquake has happened, a tornado has come through and people come through town to try to help the people rebuild and pick up all the pieces. Paul had this image in his mind like the people that he's seeing on Sunday morning, they're shattered people. They're torn apart people. There's stuff in their soul that's turned over, that's upside down, that's broken. And just as you would go through town and start picking up boards and rebuilding homes and building a new structure, That's the way to talk to somebody. So the question we always ought to be asking ourselves is, how can I pick up something in here? How can I build up? How can I restore something inside this soul to whom I'm speaking? So that's how you define good. Does it redeem? Does it restore? Does it make them better? Now, I don't know anybody who's been better as a result of having someone say the F word in their face or someone getting in their face without a control anger and like, thank you for helping me so much. That's it does not build up. It does not redeem. The weapons of our warfare are not of the world and of the flesh, Paul says. The anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God, James says. Just mark it down. It does not result in edification. It results in more damage that they now need another speaker to come and pick up. But that's not the only definition for good. He gives two, doesn't he? He says, according to the need of the moment. I want you to turn, we haven't turned anywhere, but a familiar verse, Hebrews 10, the one about stirring each other up to love and good deeds. Hebrews 10, 24. The writer says, let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. What I wanted to point out here is there's actually in the commentaries a debate on does let us consider have as its object stimulation or one another. And it really makes a difference how you take it. And they're both true. So it's helpful to point out. If you take the object as one another, what he's saying is, let us consider one another and then follows how to provoke and stimulate one or another to love and good deeds, which means is like you're not just talking to X and Y and A and B and just some variable out here. You're talking to a specific person. They're this old. They're married to this person. These are their children. This is their past events. This is their present situation. This is their likes and dislikes. They cry for this reason. They're happy for this reason. These are their dreams. These are their nightmares. That specificity, let us consider one another that we may know what to say to one another. That kind of Philippians 2 thought, like consider one another. Now, how does that connect to Paul saying, according to the need of the moment? Well, the idea is you don't bring a ticket to the show to the man on the side of the road on the way to Jericho. He can't use that. You're like, well here, like James, I'll pray for you. He doesn't need prayer. He needs oil, and he needs bandages, and he needs money, and he needs a place to stay. And so you give the guy what he needs. John says in 1 John 3, if you see your brother in need, and you have the world's goods to meet his need, and you do not, and you close your heart against him, John doesn't say, it's okay, we'll work on your sanctification. I don't even know if you're a believer. If you can see a brother in need, and you know you have the ability to meet the need, and you can go to sleep at night, he says, how does the love of God abide in you? So, the Christian wants to meet specific individual needs. He wants to actually love the person. You know, if you need a Phillips head screwdriver, what good is it to come in and give you a flat head? That's not what you needed. And then I walk off feeling just wonderful. What a wonderful, helpful philanthropist I am that I gave you a gift. Well, that's not the gift you needed. You know what that's like. Everyone's had someone, they buy you stuff for a birthday or whatever, and you could tell there was no thought in it. They just bought something, they just ran and just got something, but if someone gives you something specific, and you realize, man, they were thinking, and they thought this, and they registered that, and they put all this together, and they gave me this tailor-made specific thing, you feel loved. because it was according to the need of the moment. Let me give you an example of what I have in mind for application. Sometimes we have a cookie-cut way we suppose that God is going to use us in the lives of others, and we won't adapt to the way they need us to serve them. Just to give you an example, suppose you wanted to serve some women by everyone going out of town on a trip. and everybody's gonna wear like those, y'all gonna all get dressed up and wear gloves and the big brim hats and flowers in them and sit somewhere nice and put the flowers on the table and share verses and everybody, just a nice, elegant, pride and prejudice looking event. And that's a great idea. Fantastic idea. Would probably indeed be tremendous blessing to sit and have tea and cake and drink and an elegant evening. But how does that help the new mother with three kids who can't go and whose husband is working two jobs and there's no one can watch the kids? Can she go take the weekend and just go all dressed up and know she's got spit up all over? And she can't leave for two seconds? So probably the way to serve her is to come to her house and visit her, and pray with her, share some verses with her, bring lunch, and then leave. That's according to the need of the moment. not according to my cookie-cutter way that I want God to use me. You see, that's not the way to think. The way to think is, Lord, just simply use me to love real people wherever they are, whatever the need is. There's looseness there. The only thing fixed is I want to meet real needs. And so if I need to adapt or do something a different way, like, good, I'll do that. So as I said, these are very interesting, intriguing, encouraging and convicting statements by Paul. Well, finally, then he gives the reason for it all. So that it will give grace. And this is perhaps most powerful of all. Words have the ability to give grace. And grace for Paul obviously refers to the grace of God to a power that energizes someone and picks them up. I mean, according to this letter, God has given each one of us grace when we were dead in our trespasses and sins. He says, by grace you have been saved. And at the beginning, when we're singing, there are three times, it's to the praise of the glory of His grace. So the idea is, you're a Christian, you haven't been staring, you're not worshipping Moloch. Sometimes we act like we've been worshipping Moloch. Like, you become like what you worship. So you look at how we act sometimes, it's like, have you been worshipping Moloch again? Like the God who just takes and just gobbles people. Because that's how you're acting. You just want to be out here and everybody is for me. Like the seagulls on Finding Nemo. It's mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. And you can always tell, like, I know you haven't been worshipping the triune God. I know you haven't been thinking about the Gospel. That's Jesus' point in the parable that you can't be sitting there. You could not have just come from Sunday and been thinking, I owed all this debt, and oh my gosh, I was about to perish, and He forgave me of all this debt. You cannot be occupied with that in your mind and go strangle somebody. Like, I told you to put the paper here. Goodness! You can mark it down. You can mark it, mark it. If I walk into my home in the evening, I told you all to be ready at this time. What was I not doing on the way home? Thinking about Christ and the Gospel. You can just mark it down. Because you become like what you worship. You become like what you're thinking about. That's why every little kid, when Frozen came out, had their little gown and was slamming the doors saying, let it go. They were becoming like what they were watching. It happens all the time. So in a sense, we have this saying, pay it forward or pass it on. You know, you go to some store and you're like, oh, somebody paid for you. And you say, OK, I'll pass it on. And you put 20 for the next guy. And then they come in the next guy. In a sense, what Paul is saying is, if you're occupied with the thought that God has given grace to you, a wretch, pass it on. David Miller, the brother in the wheelchair, who's just been going downhill as some of you know, he used to say that, quote, those who believe in sovereign grace ought to have some themselves. And since it's our words that have the power to do this, He says, this is who you really are, do this, to those who hear, look at that, to those who hear. Every one of us has an audience. There's someone in your circle of life, your people that are around you, in earshot of you, that's who this is talking about, to those who hear. And you are going to turn Let's say you're going to turn their ear into a mouth, and they're going to drink something down from you. And it's either going to be like a smoothie from Tropical Cafe that is nourishing to them, or they're going to drink down rotted milk from you. That happened to me when I was in junior high. I thought it was cool to go eat school breakfast. And so me and my friend would go and we would eat like, man, like seven bowls of cereal in the morning and would have all the milk cartons around me after I was done. And I remember I got a hold to a bad milk carton one time. See, I'm kind of like Branch. He had this back story for why he was so negative. That's the back story for why I just struggle with sour cream and all this stuff. You see? Then another time, Dustin, whom some of you know, we were working out in the building out there and he had used a can for a spit cup. I went back the next day to work out and I thought it was my Sprite. I would have been seen by my parents' water hose with the water hose in my mouth for I think at least seven or eight minutes just trying to... I thought about that again. Do you realize like some people who talk to us like that they just need to go detox after talking to us? that we fill them with corrupting filth. And it's like they just need to go put a mental water hose into their soul and just clean out the discouraging, disgusting, corrupting filth. The thought that you would do that to somebody, doesn't that make you just want to sling that from you? I mean, there's a verse in the Old Testament that says if you're going to go out there and make everybody fearful, please stay home. Don't go to war. Just stay home. You melt the hearts of your brethren. So, that's the reason to do it. God has shown grace to you, and we're still alive. We're not dead yet. We're not going to be with the Lord yet. He's left us here, and He's been good to us and shown grace to us, and there are just these people that we're allowed to maybe show grace to them. pass it on. Someone did that to me this week. I experienced it this very week. Somebody said some things to me that was sort of just felt like it literally grabbed me by the heart and lifted and pulled me back up. And I was like, man, I felt the reality. and even the necessity of having relationships where people are speaking these kind of words to you. I mean, it saves you. It literally saves you and rescues you, pulls you up. So, may this verse be impactful to us in all our Christian's life. Hear it again. Essentially what Paul is telling us is instead of words proceeding from your mouth that corrupt, change those into words proceeding from your mouth that build up. Let's pray together.