Communication

Welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Join us as we explore God's Word, providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you're about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning gathering. If you'd like to know more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.org.

We hope that you're encouraged by today's message. We're a little lower this week, that's okay. It's a tough week, trying to get out of bed, right? I mean, it's really cold, and I got a little cold myself. You know, I wanted to sleep in this morning, to be honest with you.

But I'm excited you're here today. We are in the middle of a series called Uncommon. Excited about this series, and the idea of this series is relationships are hard. There's no way around it, right? They're difficult.

They're hard to manage. The way we handle them, we do them wrong all the time. And the reason is, we've been doing it the common way. And sometimes the culture and the things around us, they kind of dictate how we handle relationships, and without even knowing, we're influenced by the things around us. But the probable way says they just don't work, right?

If we look statistically at how relationships are making it, they're not working. They're not working at all. But it is possible. It's possible to have the best relationships ever. So we're looking at an uncommon way of doing it.

The common way is the world's way. But the uncommon way of looking at relationships is God's way. So whether you're a believer, whether you're still trying to figure out this Jesus thing, you walked in today, and you're like, I'm not down with the Jesus thing yet. I get that, you know, resurrection, miracles, and stuff like that. But if you would just open your hearts and take a second just to listen, there's some very practical stuff that God can share with us, and kind of, and the Bible can help us out in these areas of relationships.

So we are looking at Romans 12.2. And if you have a Bible, or if you have an electronic device, I know that the cell service in here is not good. We're going to work on getting some Wi-Fi in this room pretty soon, so you guys can open up your phones and use your apps and stuff. But we'll also have everything you need right up here on the screen.

But in Romans 12.2, Paul writes to the Roman church, in fact, a church that he's never visited before, but he's encouraged to be a part of, and he knows about the culture and everything going on in Rome in that day, because Rome was an epic center in that day. Everything was going on. It was centered, the whole, the government, they ran the world then. I mean, Rome was a big deal during that period of time.

And he says this, he says, don't copy the behaviors and customs of the world. In fact, the NIV says, don't conform. Don't conform. That idea of conforming, if you look at the original Greek word, is that you're in a vice script, and you're being forced and pressed down to conform. You're being made, you're being molded, and without even trying or not, without even knowing that it's happening, you're being pressed to think the way that the things around you are making you think.

So, don't be conformed, or don't copy the behaviors and customs of the world without even knowing it, if you want to say it like that, without even knowing it, because it doesn't work, right? And if you just take a glance at social media, for instance, we kind of compare each other in our social media reels, and we think, wow, that really works for them. They're not doing it any way the Bible says to do it, but it seems to be working for them, right? I mean, they're doing life together, and you look at a television, and you think, wow, what a wonderful life, but underneath the highlight reel, there's a lot of things going on, and that's why we see so many divorces, even with the high and ups, and all the way down to the average person, there's always issues in relationships. So, don't copy the behaviors and customs of the world because it doesn't work, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

See, God transforms you. God transforms you into that new person. God transforms you rather than just telling you what to do, and my job as a pastor is not to change you, okay? It's not my job to change you. God does that part.

Jesus does that part of it. I'm just simply introducing you to these ideas, to these thoughts. It's your job to take them and allow God to speak to you through them, and then you will learn to know God's will for you. You will know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. You can actually have good and pleasing and perfect relationships.

Did you know that? Some of you are like, Pastor, that's just pie in the sky. That's just a dream. No, no, it can be possible. They're not probable, but it is possible.

So, we're going to take you on a journey. We've been kind of walking through this journey, and if you've been with us each week, we've been hitting on certain aspects of relationships to help us have better relationships. And the first week, we talked about uncommon love, right? We talked about a love that God has for us that is unexplainable. We can't really understand it because our definition of love is a little different.

You give to me, and I give to you, and then that kind of all works out, right? But He has an unconditional love, and if we understand really how much God loves us, our love pours over into the people around us, and we are able to love people in a different way. It's an uncommon kind of love. Last week, Chris shared with us, that's probably why there's less of a crowd there like Leon speaking again, because he just did such a phenomenal job. Some of you probably wanted to fire me after last week and say he's going to be the new teaching pastor here, and that's okay.

I'm okay with that. I'm cool with that. He's going to be speaking a lot more, so, you know, you can keep packing the house when he comes and speaks, you know. You can keep doing that. You know, that's fine.

Last week, he talked about commitment, and loyalty and commitment is not something we put as a high priority these days. I mean, people are in, people are out, right? They're here today. They're gone tomorrow, but God is committed, and God shows us that in a relationship, in a marriage, in a job situation, in a friendship. We need to learn to be loyal.

We need to learn to be committed to each other, and that's, that's the common way. Next week, next week, we're going to talk about conflict. Now, this is going to be a good one, because we're all, we all deal with conflict. Some of you are dealing with conflict right now, right? I mean, you, you, you, in your job situation, or in, or, or maybe, maybe you're conflicted about the message I'm teaching right now.

You know, you've got conflict going on, right? Conflict is inevitable, and we're going to hit on conflict. We're going to look at how to handle conflict in a godly way, but this week, I want to hit on communication. Communication. This is going to be a very practical message, and it's a hard message.

It was really hard for me, because I struggle with this, and I'm convicted as I was preparing for this all during the week. It's been really hard for me to just get through it without being convicted about communication, about our use of words, and we're going to talk about the... Use of words. And it doesn't take much to look around us and see how harsh words are today. You can just cut on the news.

And people seem to have the liberty, to take the liberty to cut people down, to tear people apart, just because of an opinion or a thought or a philosophy. And people are hateful. People are mean. And you cut on the news. You see it there.

You go online. You see people ripping people apart. I've never ever, I don't think I've ever seen a time like I have now. I know it's been there, but I think it's been enhanced since this last political election and all the things that are going on. People are just mean.

And people are destructive. And they're vile. And they tear people apart. And don't dare comment online on a post, right? Because you're going to get ripped apart.

Stay away from it. Don't even look at it. Don't even go there. Don't even try to get involved in those discussions because people are hateful. And it's just a mess today.

Okay. And so we want to let God show us how to communicate well rather than the norm, which doesn't seem to be working. In a time where communication seems to be deteriorating, perhaps because of the social media age and things like that, there's good things about social media, but there's also bad things about social media and, you know, technology and things like that. So we want to look at how to really communicate well. And to introduce that, I want to talk about four levels of communication, four levels of communication if you're following your notes.

And this is research information. This isn't Leon coming up with stuff off the top of his head. This is actually stuff I've read and I've studied and others have studied and pulled this together. So number one, the first level of communication we usually participate in is surface communication. That's surface communication.

Surface communication. What is that? Well, that's stuff like, hello, how you doing? Good. How are you?

Fine. Okay. They're cliches, you know, good to see you because it's the right thing to do. It really isn't, sometimes it isn't good to see people, right? But we say it anyway because it's the polite thing to say, right?

How are you doing? How, you know, you walk into a restaurant and, and, or, or a fast food place. The person behind the counter is supposed to say, how are you doing? Right? Right.

But today they don't really care. Sometimes they don't even say anything. In fact, I walked into a place a couple of years ago. I walked up to the cash register. It was like a burger place or something.

And the person didn't even respond. They just kind of looked at me. So guess what I did? I went behind, I went up to the, and I just looked at them. And I waited and I waited and they still weren't going to respond.

I'm like, oh, can I take my order now? You know, sometimes it happens, you know, because even surface communication isn't that great these days. But I thought I would put it to practice a little bit, you know, just to see after reading this and, and see how, how it worked with people. And I was at Harris Teeter a couple of days ago and I walked up to the lady at the cash register and, and she said, hey, how are you doing today? I said, well, I got a little bit of a head cold and I started going on and on about that.

And she was not, she was not the least bit interested. She was just like, this guy is, no, I was just being polite, right? And that, that's, that's kind of the common way, right? I mean, surface communication. We were polite and it's good to be polite.

I mean, you don't want to be mean or anything, but there's a lot of surface communication that goes on. Well, the second level of communication is general information. That's stuff like, I got to pick the kids up for school or I got to, we got to get this done or Johnny's got ball practice or, or. And it's just information being passed back and forth. And this, and that kind of happens in a household.

It kind of happens at work. And it's just all about job, the job situation. And it just kind of, you know, it's about busyness, right? Busyness. We're just, we're just talking through information.

We're communicating in this way. And men are bad about this in marriage. We just are. We, we, we, the wife comes home. She wants to talk about her day, right?

And this, you know, there's, there's exceptions to the rule. You know, sometimes the man wants to talk about their day and maybe the woman's more of an informational purpose. But men tend to be this way a little more. And we just, we just want to get to the point. We want to get through it because we've got our task list in our head.

I've got to get this, this, this. Then, oh, we're just tired because we've been doing tasks all day. I mean, we just want to sit down with a, with a bag of chips and watch TV for a little while. But that ain't happening, right? So, so we're, we're, we're, we're bad about that.

And let me, let me tell you something, guys. You know what the four most romantic words you can say to your wife or your other half is? Four most romantic words. Pull out your sheets. I want you to write this down.

Write a four most romantic words. And then what happened? And then what happened, right? I mean, when she, when she like falls out on the floor, when you say that, you know, she's going to be, you know, excited about that. I've shared this example before.

I used to watch Everybody Hates Chris. Did anybody ever watch that? Is it a Chris Rock kind of narrated? So funny. It's the funniest show in the world.

And Terry Crews played the, played the father. And he came home one day and his wife's coming in and she's just talking about, you know, this girl at work, you know, she did this, she did that. Can you believe that she did that, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's just kind of sitting down on his chair and, you know, he just wants to sit down and watch TV and grab a bottle of beer or something, you know, and just kind of hang out for a while and chill out, right? And she's just going off.

And then he decides, you know, I'm just going to get this to the point. Well, maybe, maybe she was having a bad day. She says, what? You taking her side? You know, he kind of takes his chips, everything, and then he doesn't have anything.

You know, he's sitting there with nothing. And by the end of the episode, he figures out the secret, right? And that's where this, and then what happened, it kind of comes in, right? He figures out the secret. He comes home and she starts going off on her thing again and says, are you serious?

Are you, is she doing, yeah, she did, and it just goes on and on and on. I can't believe she said that. I can't believe she did that. I can't believe, and then next thing you know, she's bringing him out food and he's kind of sitting back in the chair like, hmm, this works, you know? She's serving him hand and foot because he's listening, see?

But we typically just pass back and forth information. And the next two points is really kind of where we don't usually get to, you know? And we need to start getting more to this level. Number three, deep feelings. Third level communication, deep feelings.

And most people don't really like to share their feelings because we've made it very difficult to share our feelings. Because we're afraid we're going to get critiqued or corrected. And feelings aren't always right. But they're there nevertheless. Feelings are there and they need to be expressed.

And next week, as we talk about conflict, we're going to talk about some of those feelings and kind of hash them out. But you can question facts, but you can't question feelings. People have feelings. And we need to create safe places where people can share their feelings and talk about what's really going on inside here. Without any harsh correction or anything to steer them away.

We need to be more open. And we need to share our deep feelings. And then number four, most people never make it here. Deep needs. Deep needs.

Deep needs. Deep needs. Thank you. Level four, deep needs. And we tend to never make it to this place.

You want to have the perfect marriage? Consider the other person's needs. Look at the other person's needs. Meet them where they are. And more than 90% don't consider other people, in marriages and relationships, don't consider people's feelings, the other person's feelings.

And that's why there's so many issues, because it's about me, what I need to get. You should be giving me this, rather than being selfless and thinking about what the other person gets. And there was a counselor that shared with me that out of all the couples that he counseled, or premarital counseling, marital counseling, whatever it was, because he would have them write down five needs about the other person. And almost never did they match. Never did they match.

Because we never get to that place of deep needs. That's where you really start hitting the pocket. And with that, we need to recognize there are also barriers in communication. And this is where, you know, how does this play out? We understand where we need to get to, but what's keeping us from getting there?

Well, number one, the first barrier is, and this is research stuff, this is research things. Psychologists have researched this. The first barrier is withdrawal. Withdrawal. We tend to withdraw when we're angry, right?

Or withdraw, we don't, we'd rather have the silent treatment happening, right? Like the man and the woman, the husband and wife, we kind of want to play that game. You know, who's going to win in the silent treatment? Like, I'm not going to talk, she's not going to talk, I'm not going to talk either. And we're just going to go, we're going to see how long this is going to happen.

And one day Miranda was giving me the silent treatment. I mean, it was, it was bad. It was like, it was like for a few hours. So I text my, my, my father-in-law because, you know, ask his advice, you know, and I said, does Miss Peggy ever give you the silent treatment? And, and he texts me back.

No, she don't last that long. I thought Miranda wouldn't either, but she's pretty good at it. But, but I heard the story of one person. It was a couple got in an argument and they were kind of giving each other the silent treatment and, and they were kind of battling who was going to, who was going to be silent the longest. And they were going to bed that evening.

And he's like, I'm going to, I'm going to win this. I'm not going to give in. And I'm, so he wrote a note out because he needed to wake up the next morning at five o'clock to go to the airport. So he left it right at her cause she got up really early and he left it right at her mirror over in the bathroom and wrote out, I, uh, uh, wake me up at five o'clock. Well, he wakes up the next morning.

He's like, Oh, it's nine o'clock. He's missed his plane flight. He's supposed to be somewhere and he's missed it. And he kind of, kind of looks around and he looks next to him. And there's a letter on the table next to him that says, time to wake up.

It's five o'clock. That's funny right there. I don't care who you are. Withdrawal is not the best way to go. It's a barrier of communication.

Secondly, there's escalation and this is where the temper gets involved. It's like when we get these arguments and it starts out like a casual conversation and then the, and then the conversation gets a little louder and then it gets a little louder and then you're starting to get heated and, and the next thing you know, you're not talking to each other and then you're withdrawing, right? And that escalation, we escalate the problem worse than it is. In fact, yesterday, Miranda and I had a little, little fight. It was a little fight.

We got through it real quick. Okay. Cause I was, I had this message in my heart and I had to, I had to forgive, I had to ask forgiveness right away. But, uh, uh, it happened. It was just a small little question and she answered back strongly and I answered back stronger and she answered back stronger.

And then, and then, and then Max was coming in and says, Hey guys, settle down, settle down, settle down. And I realized, wow, my, my, my five-year-old kid is noticing this. This is not good, but that happens. We escalate, we escalate something. Escalation is another growth barrier and you can't solve anything that way.

And then it, and then it gets to belittling, belittling. And this is where it starts getting really bad, belittling. Words get involved. We start saying, well, you did this, you did that. We start getting critical.

We start getting insecure. Maybe there are insecurities in us that cause us to act that way and act out that way. Maybe it's something deep down inside, but we start to, to call each other names or talk. Well, look at the family you're from or what, you know, you know, we just start throwing things out. And, and it gets mean and, and, and, and belittles, it belittles each other.

And then fourthly, and this is where, frankly, it gets demonic. This is where the devil gets involved because John 8 says the devil is a liar and the father of lies. And it, it, it turns into this false belief. It's where, it's where we just start making up stuff. We start pulling up stuff about the other person that isn't true.

It doesn't really, it doesn't exist. We just start making it, making it up. And we never want it to get there because Satan's plan is to ruin our relationships. And when we allow it to get to that point, we, it really gets bad and it could take months and years of healing. So, we've got to take an uncommon approach in our relationships.

And this is where I want to get to, kind of give you some application to this. And, and, and the, and the scripture we're going to, we're going to look at real quick here is in Matthew 12. And this, this scripture is right before the scripture of blasphemy. Most of you know, the, the, if you, if you know anything about the Bible or you studied on anything about what Jesus taught us. Blasphemy is like that unforgivable sin.

And a lot of people walk around like, have I committed blasphemy? Blasphemy, I could promise you wouldn't be here today if you committed blasphemy, okay? But he talks about that and he, and he uses it in the context of words, of how we say and how we think and what's in our heart that comes out. And, and, and he comes to, to, to, to talking about the, the use of words. And he says this, let me tell you something.

Every one of you, these, uh, every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. Isn't that true? There will be a dime of reckoning. There will be a time of reckoning. That's actually a time.

Other versions say a time of judgment. And this, and words are powerful. Take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Damnation or words can be your damnation.

And, and some of you probably are already convicted by your words and, and you're, you're wondering, well, I've been hurt so much from the past or, and then I'm kind of pushing those words on other people and I'm dealing with this. And I just don't know. I'm telling you the cross of Jesus Christ can wipe you clean of that, of that today. I just want to let you know that he can, he can come and change you. He can help you.

He can bring you through that. You can be healed. You can be restored. God is everything. But we need to be careful how we use our words.

We are the product of our words. We are the product. Who we are and, and where we've come from and what we've developed into is based on the words that have been spoken over us. I've, I've, I've been fortunate. I've, I've, I have a really good, uh, I've been fortunate.

Thank you. Parents. I have really good parents. I have really good family. My father was a pastor.

That doesn't mean that all pastors are good fathers, but my father happened to be a father first and a pastor second, and he really encouraged us, and he really spoke encouragement over us and pushed us into what we were made and created and purposed to be. He's still that instrument in my life today, but there are times in my life where I still have insecurities because we moved around a lot, and I was in places and cultures that didn't necessarily accept me, you know, being the strawberry blonde freckled face kid coming into a new territory. Some of you military kids probably could understand when you moved from place to place, you're not always accepted because you're not a member of the club or the family or the culture there. And, you know, those times, even those small things like not being picked for the kickball team, you know, little things like that, you're not good enough. You're not this this and that.

And through and through and some of you have been there and some of you have even witnessed it in your own family. Maybe your parents have spoken negative words over you and maybe in turn you're speaking negative words over your family and over your situation. But we can be healed, we can be restored, and we can change that. So I want to give you some some good advice. Words carry immeasurably terrible significance.

The universe was created when God spoke it and it leapt into existence. Jesus used words to cast out demons in the name of God. Christians have worshiped through words. Confessions have been made through words. Preaching comes through words.

Salvation by those who hear come through words come through words. And even technology, politics, education, relationships center on words. Proverbs 18, 21 says the tongue has the power of life and death. And those who love it will eat its fruit. Whether it's life, you eat the fruit of life.

If it's death, you eat the fruit of death. So, the famous playwright, let me just throw this in there. The famous playwright George Bernard Shaw said this, the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. A lot of times we think we've communicated something well, but maybe that's an illusion. So here's some practical advice.

I don't want to tell you what not to do. I want to tell you what to do. Because I don't, you know, you get up here, you can hear all the what nots. I think most of you know what not to do for the most part. I mean, we figure it out.

So I want to help tell you what to do. I want to give you instructions of what to do when we bring this down to an application level. So there's seven things I want to mention that we can do to help our communication. The first one is praise. The first one is praise.

Proverbs 25, 11 says, a word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. We are going to be a word. We are going to be a word. We are going to be a word.

We are going to be a people that praise one another, that praise each other. Now, I'm not talking about praising people like we praise God and lift him up. I'm talking about praising people, encouraging them and praising them and their potential and directing them in their potential like lifting them up and praising our children, praising people. Let me just say something. We have a growth track that you can go through, and we just did 101 today, and we go through 301, and in 301 you discover your potential, your purpose, and things like that, and you find a place to be a part of the ministry, either here at Salt Church and actually helps encourage you into your direction, what God created you to be.

And usually we don't like to tell people where they belong because we want to help them figure out where they belong, you know, through the growth track or whatever, because we want to make sure you're in the place you're called to be. But today I'm going to break that rule and say, if you haven't been a part of our children's ministry, we need people in our children's ministry. We need people to speak apples of gold, apples of gold and settings of silver over our children. We need to speak life over our children. They are our future.

You know, we're actually struggling because we're bouncing people around because we don't have enough people in the children's ministry, and I promise you this is not some ploy to beg for people to go work in something they don't want to work, but I'm telling you this is so instrumental because we believe in praising our kids, encouraging our kids, speaking positivity over our kids because we're building them up even at a very small age, as young as 5, 4, 3, 2, even 1 year old. We need people to be over those children, to speak apples of gold and settings of silver over them. So we praise people. Secondly, Thanksgiving. We give thanks.

You know, a thank you to someone really means a lot, even though it seems so small. Just saying thank you. You know, one of the most special things I hear from my children really lifts me up is when I do something for them, and they respond, Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Daddy. Thank you.

Thank you. Miranda's actually been very intentional lately. I think she's been listening to some kind of relationship series herself. But she's just been really, really intentional about telling me all the time she thanks me. She thanks me.

And I'm telling you, it just changes the culture in our environment when I know that I'm appreciated. It's little effort, but it goes a long way. It goes a long way when we thank the people around us. The University of California study suggested that gratitude can actually affect your well-being. Did you know that?

It can affect your well-being when you think, when you have a culture of thinking, of being thankful to each other and thanking people. It actually makes you healthier. There's practical things to this, you know. That's good stuff. I think I want to be a little healthier.

I think I'll start thanking people a little more, right? It says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 16, and 18, rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Jesus Christ. Let's be thankful. Husbands, be thankful to your wives. You know, it tells you you've been given a good thing.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing, right? How about thanking God for that and thanking her for being your wife? Men, I can speak as a man because we tend to not do that because we're thinking about other things, right? So be thankful. Thirdly, affection.

Affection. This is really hard because we're not very affectionate people in general. And, you know, I love you. Why is that so hard to say? I love you.

Even, even... I mean, it's hard enough doing it in a marriage. I mean, outside of a marriage, but in a marriage, we don't even do it, right? We don't say, I love you. I love you.

I really do love you. We don't tell our kids we love them. We need to tell our kids more we love them. Just speak love and affection over them. Kiss their cheeks.

Tell them that you love them, that you care about them. Tell your wife you love her, men. Come on now. Tell your wife you love her. You appreciate her.

You love her. Be affectionate to her. I can't tell someone I love them. Excuse me. I'm bouncing around here.

I've got some cold medicine, so if I look a little loopy up here, I apologize. Why do we do this? Why do we do this? Because God loved us. God loved us.

He loved us so much, and He is affectionate towards us. In fact, Jeremiah 31, 3 says, I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love, I have drawn you to myself. Jesus said, they will know me by the way you love one another. And I know this is really hard for some of you guys here, but you need to tell another guy you love them once in a while.

I mean, you don't have to say, I love you. You can say, love you, bro. You know? You can go, love you, bro. Hey, bro.

Bro, I love you. I love you, man. I love you. Love you. Love you.

It's okay. See? See? See? There's a prime example.

Prime example. Men don't like to do that. They don't even like to touch you. We got to love each other a little bit, right? He got nervous.

Yeah, see? We got to get comfortable around each other and love each other a little bit. Show some love. Show some affection. Affection is great.

Just healing, healing communication. Encouragement is the fourth one. Try encouraging somebody. Let me just say this. Let me just use this as a practical example.

Do you know, as a pastor, there is not a day that goes by that I don't think about you. I don't think about, I think about you guys every day. I pray for you every day. And I am so thankful. And I just want to encourage you.

I'm so blessed to have you as my church family. I am so blessed that you would allow me to lead you and for us to be together. It is the joy of my life. And I just want to encourage you. And I just believe in you so much.

And I just could say that over and over. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. This is not some example. This is just, I really, really, truly feel that. And know all of us together, we need to encourage one another.

We need to encourage each other towards the goal. Ephesians 4 29 says, do not let let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only that which is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. I want to, we got to build each other up. Don't discourage each other. Encourage each other.

Encourage each other. Fifthly, kindness. Kindness. We need to speak kindness. A little kindness goes a long way.

Just a little bit of kindness, right? Even if that waitress isn't so nice to you and doesn't serve you, that doesn't fill your cup up when it's halfway down, right? Be kind to her. Be nice to her. When that Harris Teeter lady doesn't want to listen to me, you know, be kind to them anyway.

Smile, smile at them and, and, you know, just, just, just encourage them and, and be kind to them. Be, be nice. Proverbs 51 1 says, a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. And we need to create environments that are harmless. We need to create safe places like I've been talking about, safe places of, of, of kindness.

And some of you have, have, have grown up in places where you weren't protected because the world is, is hard anyway, right? People are mean, okay? People are harsh. People are mean. It's not hard to see that.

And I'm telling you, those of you who, who have families or starting families, or you have, or you have a home that you bring people into. In fact, all of us need to be people like that, that we want to create environments for our children, for our friends, so they can come in out of the hostile world and experience kindness and goodness. And we, and we need to build them up in that way. Just come into my home. Don't build, don't, don't put out harsh environments for them to come into.

Don't do that. Don't create harsh environments in your home. Don't be mean to your children. Yeah, you got to correct them sometimes. Yeah.

If they're burning down the house, you know, don't know. It's okay, baby. You know, you don't want to do, you know, you need to pull them away from, from doing certain things, but, but, and, and correct them and steer them. But be kind, be kind to them. Create environments of kindness.

Husbands and wives, don't talk about your other half when they're away. Don't talk bad about them. Talk kind about them. Love them and be kind. Six, truth in love.

Love, following your notes, truth in love. Ephesians 4.15 says, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way, more and more like Christ. See, Jesus did this. Jesus spoke the truth.

He was very direct about the truth. He was very direct with people when they were steered off, especially with the Pharisees and different ones who, who were very religious people and, and thought they had it right and thought he had it wrong. And he would steer them and direct them. And he was quite harsh with them. I mean, Jesus was a feisty guy at times, man.

He wasn't, you know, we see movies where, you know, he's got the white robe on and he's like lifting his hand up to the sky and he's like, you know, just all that. And we're like, man, this is a boring Jesus. You know, that's just false. That's false. Jesus was very direct.

And he was feisty at times. I mean, he turned the, the, the tables over in the temple when they were, uh, just right. He was, he, he, he was very truthful about things, but yet there was something about Jesus and the way he spoke truth. He spoke it in love. And when he would correct the disciples, when he would correct people around him, when he would correct leaders, there was something about it.

It was in a spirit of love. Why did people, why could people hear the truth, the, the, the, the, the straightforward truth come from, from the mouth of Jesus and still gather in hundreds and thousands, even if it was convicting them? Why? Cause he had this love, the sincere heart about him when he directed people and love. And we need to be people who, who, who speak truth and love because if we don't have love with our truth, we're just mean.

Right. And there's a lot of mean Christians out there, right? Maybe Christians, but they're mean. You need to do this. You need to do that.

You know, I kind of grew up in a sort of an environment like that. All these elders in the church, yeah, you don't need to be wearing that. You know, they don't need to do this. And they were just kind of mean, you know, like they didn't have a life or something, you know, but you know, as, as Christians, we have life, man. And we have love in our hearts, you know, and yes, we're concerned about people steering off and doing the wrong things and making decisions that aren't the best for them, but we do it in love.

We help them in love. We show them that we do this because we love you and we love God and we want to see, and God loves us and he shows us and he directs us. And we do this in love. we, uh, we do that in love. And lastly, last Lastly, prayer.

Prayer. Your heart will change when you involve God in the process. Your heart will change when we communicate with God and we bring God into the process. Because He's the one that transforms. He's the one that changes things.

He's the one that brings about something supernatural that wipes away all the hurt we've had in the past. All the words we've said in the past. He is a part of that process. Prayer. Prayer.

We need to part. Psalm 16 8 and 9 says, I keep my eyes always on the Lord with Him at my right hand. I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also will rest secure.

I love that word, my right hand. He will be at my right hand. That means He is number one. He is the closest thing to me. The Father says that Jesus is at His right hand.

He's saying only God. And David's saying, God's going to be at my right hand. Same deal. It means that God is at your right hand. He is number one in your life.

And you need a heart that is glad and rejoices. And my body also will rest secure. We all want rest in our souls, right? If I can have the band come out. Heather's not here today to lead you in.

But rest secure in that. So in conclusion, in conclusion, here's what I want to say. I want to say. God needs to heal some hearts today. Some of you have been terribly convicted because your hearts, your hearts have been hurt.

Words that were spoken over you at some point in your life, they've been fractured. Perhaps you had a mentor or a father or a mother or a parent or somebody in your family that just spoke harsh words. Maybe you grew up. You need to be healed. And some of you are like, I have problems with words myself.

You know, God can forgive you today of any harsh words you've spoken over anybody else. And He can also heal you on the other side of it. He wants to heal you. He wants to bring you. He wants to bring you peace.

He wants to secure you. He wants to bring rest in your heart and soul. So pray with me today. Pray with me today. And if there's one here with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, if there's somebody in here, I mean, anybody in here who's had issues with words in the past, if you would raise your hand, I just want to pray with you.

Amen. Amen. I want to pray with you. God's going to heal that. Lord Jesus, those hands that were raised, if there's more hands here, some may have not lifted your hands.

Lord, I want to pray over these people, God, that you would just begin to mend their hearts back together, to let them see that there is purpose in them, that there's life in you, God. There's life in you, God. There's hope in you, Lord. You mend the brokenhearted. The words spoken of us will not have effect over our lives, Lord.

We can put a stop to it right now. And the words that we have spoken over others, the things we have communicated, the negativity we've communicated over others, Lord, we ask for forgiveness and healing in that area, because before we can even move forward, we need to eliminate that from our lives, God. So we're asking for a supernatural transformation, a supernatural transformation in our hearts and in our minds, a renewing of the mind, a renewing of our hearts, Lord Jesus, so that we can be better disciples, so that we can be better followers, so that we can begin a legacy from this day forward, where we speak words over our children, Lord, over our grandchildren, Lord, over our friends, over our family, Lord Jesus, and begin a legacy that can be downhill rather than uphill, Lord Jesus, that we can move over that hump, Lord, and we can begin to break some generational stuff that has been over our life, Lord. And in the same spirit of prayer, there are some people in here, I'll take this moment very seriously. Maybe yours is sort of a different story.

Maybe you had a relationship with Christ at some point, but you turned away from God. It could have been a word spoken over you, or some kind of fractured piece of your life that just pushed you away from God. Maybe you blamed God and you left, and you're walking in here today, and God's been pulling at your heartstring. Or maybe you're somebody who's just never, ever given Jesus a chance. And I'm just throwing it out there.

Consider Jesus today. If that's you, and I'm not going to call you up to the front, I'm not going to embarrass you. If that's you today, if you could lift your hand and say, I'm ready to surrender to Jesus. I'm going to give my life. I'm going to give my heart to Jesus.

Come on, be bold today. Today, Jesus is calling you. He's pulling at your heart. Be bold today. Give your heart to Christ.

Give your heart to Christ today. If that's you, a few more seconds. Lord Jesus, I pray for those who are confessing today their sins before you, God, and believing in their heart that you are the Son of God and placing their sin on the blood of Jesus, which covers all sins and makes it white as snow. If you would just pray that with me in your hearts. Lord, I believe that you are the Son of God, that you forgave me of my sins on the cross long ago.

I give my life to you. I surrender it over to you. And today, I walk with you from here on out. We ask this in your name. Amen.

God bless you.