The Sound Of Grace

How's everybody doing? Good. Give it up for our worship team. And our pastors are in Costa Rica.

Give it up for them. Advancing the kingdom of God. I don't know what time it is there, but I think it's earlier than it is here. Pastor Fred must have got up early.

I sent me a nice message this morning, early this morning. When we get that first slide up there, I was, Pastor Fred asked me to minister this morning. It didn't take too long before I, the Lord had revealed to me what he wanted me to share. About 10 years ago, maybe a little longer than that, 12 years ago, I was driving, I was working on a deep creek lake, cleaning decks and staining wall cabins and so forth.

And I was driving home and I was living in Terry and I were living in a corner at the time, or licensing, technically. And anybody familiar with Mount Sonnet or Route 40, going into Uniontown, Pennsylvania? Big old mountain. It's no fun in the winter, but in the summer it's beautiful.

And as I recall this day, it was just a beautiful day. When I got to the top of the mountain, the visibility was just forever. I could see forever. And as I got to the top of the mountain, the Lord spoke four words to me.

Just out of nowhere. I wasn't in prayer. I wasn't anything. Just the sound of grace.

I knew I heard the Lord, but I really had no idea what he was trying to say to me. And anybody that knows me knows that I don't deal well with that. I have to know what's going on. I have to understand things, right?

So I think it was maybe upwards of six or seven months before the next kind of piece of the puzzle came. But as God began to unveil this to me and reveal it to me, it wasn't just about so that I could have a message to preach. It transformed my life. The sound of grace.

I thought, what does grace sound like? Whitney described grace this morning. It's truly amazing. It is God's empowerment.

It is His influence upon our heart. It's His divine favor. I dare. It's the sound of grace.

Well, what does that sound like? I thought. The sound of grace. So if we could pop to the next slide, it was probably about six or seven months later I was reading through the Gospels.

And I came across this passage of Scripture in Luke chapter four. It says, and he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and he entered as his custom was into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah and he opened the book and found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he had anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. And he had sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind.

To set at liberty those who are bruised and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down in the eyes of all in the synagogue or fastened on him. And he began to say to them, today, hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears? And all bear him witness and wondered at the words of grace that proceeded out of his mouth.

And when I read that, there's words. The words of grace just jumped off the page of me. I got thinking about this. I thought, you know, he was in the synagogue.

These were Jews among Jews. Memorized the Torah. They heard this verse before. But something sounded different.

Jesus sounded different. So much so that it says they wondered, the Greek word is listed there. It's the same word used in Luke chapter 2 when the shepherds were describing their amazement and astonishment as the angels broke through eternity into time to peril the coming of Jesus. Same word.

So there was, it's a big word. They were astonished at the words of grace. They were astonished that this guy sounded different. What does grace sound like?

Jesus. The words of grace. We're going to talk this morning about how we hear because it influences how we talk. And we're going to talk about how we speak or our speech this morning.

When the Lord was taking me through this, I got to tell you, I didn't have a whole lot to say for probably a year. Because when I started to be more careful with my speech, I started to not talk so much. Or as much. You know what we say is important, amen?

And how we say it is just as important. Amen? You can undo the effectiveness of your speech by how you say it. You can get the what right and the how wrong.

And if you do that, the problem is you undo the effectiveness of your speech, right? We don't want to do that. So we're going to look at this in a little bit of detail today about how we talk, how we hear, and getting the how correct. You know, most often in Scripture, when Scripture deals with our speech, it deals with what and how.

Speaking the truth, what? In love, how? Right? So, and that's just one example, we'll look at many others.

But I started to realize, hey, it matters how I say things. And like I said for probably a year, I got quiet. This word was life-changing for me. It's a deep well.

I don't even have time to get into all this today. There are idle words, which we're not going to talk about because I don't have time. Self-talk. It's not just what we say to others, it's what we say to ourselves.

You know, you're an idiot. No? No, you're not. No, you're not.

Change your speech and you can change the direction and course of your existence. Remember the tongue is compared to a rudder on a ship. The rudder does what? Directs, right?

Change the direction of your existence by changing your speech. I want to sound like Jesus. I just don't want to just say what he said. I want to say it like he said it.

How we hear? Go to the next slide, please. I want to talk about a couple of things in terms of our hearing. The first one up there is filters.

Sometimes if life experiences that happen to us can cause us to see things through glasses that are colored, right? And they cause us to see things not quite right because of sometimes it passed hurt or it just shows up a lot in relationships. Well, we hear through filters as well. If you don't believe me, do you ever have somebody tell you a story about what somebody said to them?

And they're like, and so and so, and here's what actually happened. So and so said to this person, you know, you need to maybe move to the left a few feet. And here's the way it's conveyed. He told me I had to move to the left a few feet.

Did you ever get somebody do that to you? No, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but we add our attitude in it and we misrepresent the how it was said. So sometimes we can hear incorrectly even though it is spoken correctly. We hear through filters.

We need to ask God to heal those. We hear God as well as we perceive God. If you're God's an angry God, you're going to hear an angry God. And you'll display an angry God too.

I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. We have a written word. We have this challenge that all we have is a written word.

Now this book is different because it's alive. The word is alive and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. But we have a written account of what happened two thousand years ago. Do you ever get a text message from somebody?

Then you go, are they mad at me? Did I do something to them? Are they joking? You're on shorty.

Comes to the fact that the person wasn't sitting there when they said it. Right? If they would have been. We don't have that.

So we wonder. And when we hear God's word, we want to make sure that we're hearing it as it was intended to be heard. Faith comes by hearing, not by reading. We need to hear the word of God being spoke to us.

And God can do it. Talk about that a little later. Be quick to hear and slow to speak. I know a lot of Christians who have that backwards.

Come on. Are we listening to respond or are we listening to understand? I've had conversations with people listening to respond. And you can tell.

They're just waiting. You just stop talking. They're not listening to you. Be slow to speak doesn't mean you just wait longer to say what you're going to say.

Be slow to speak means that you're being influenced by what you're hearing, what you're listening to. So when you do say something, it's an arrow going to the bull's eye because you've been paying attention. I think one of the greatest problems in today's church is listening, is hearing. Really listening to somebody.

The new King James says, be swift to hear. But you know there's an idea that listening should be active and not passive. In other words, are we as passionate about hearing someone's heart as we are about sharing what's on our mind that we feel like we need to tell them? Be quick to hear and slow to speak.

The importance of hearing. Again, faith comes out by hearing. So it's important that we hear. And my sheep hear my voice.

Who's in here's a sheep? Do you hear his voice? Do you hear his voice as he speaks to you? Sometimes our speech, as we're led by the spirits, there's times when it needs to be bold.

There's times when it needs to be grace-filled and compassionate. Right? I mean, there's all kinds of ways that we can articulate things that need said. But my point is we need to be led by the Lord.

We're dealing with somebody. We're talking about a life. We're dealing with a life. Listen before you speak.

Amen? Listen before you speak. So hearing is critical. How we hear?

Not just one another, but God. How we hear God. You know, when Adam fell, and God said, where are you? Let's just look at that as an example.

Adam, where are you? How did he say it? He worked there. Was he mad?

Was he concerned? Did he really not know where he was? Or was he disappointed? Was he heartbroken?

You'll read that line how you see the filters that you have. And there's many other verses that we do the same. And we can miss the whole thing. How we speak?

Next slide, please. Jesus said in Matthew 10, 17 through 20, he says, be on your guard against men. They will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in the synagogues. On my count, you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.

But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. Both. At that time, you will be given. Not just what, but how.

Do we spend time with the Lord waiting on the Lord to give us the how? There's people sitting here this morning that I've mentored and so forth that mentoring relationships and I shared some of this with them. That before you say something, you should ask yourself three questions. Should I say it?

Not everything God reveals to you needs said. Sometimes you just might need to pray. I don't know. But should I say it?

Second question, how should I say it? And third question, why am I saying it? In other words, check your motivation. When you ask yourself why you find the motivation.

So not just what to say, how to say it. Colossians 4, 6, let your speech always. Everyone say always. Always.

Be with what? Grace. Not sometimes. Always.

Always. Be with grace. Well, yeah, but this conversation is going to be confrontational. Let your speech always be with grace.

Some of the things that we say as believers, if I could be so bold, we need to stop saying. Well, I'm just going to tell it like it is. Oh, really? You are, are you?

Did God do that? Or does He call if there are things that are not? As though they are. Our speech grows.

Second Corinthians 8, 7 says let us abound in a number of things, faith, knowledge, but in speech. Let us abound in how we talk. In other words, how critical and your walk with God is your tongue surrendered. When I did that, when I surrendered my tongue, a couple of things happened.

I got a praying in the Spirit morph that I did before then. And two, I didn't say Ola. There was a lot of quiet time. As I began to hear God's heart concerning this, Ephesians 4, 15, instead of speaking the truth in love, again, there is the what in the how.

We will grow to become in every aspect of mature body of Him who is the head. That is Christ. Here is another one that is kind of a little pet pee for me. Speaking the truth.

I was just speaking the truth in love. Okay? Love is too big a word to go fling around like that. Are you in agape with this person?

Are you in a relationship with this person? Is this the truth in agape? Not just what I love about brothers, so I'm going to go tell them what I'm about itself. No, no, no, no.

Speak the truth in agape in a love relationship. A lot of times, if I have to bring a corrective word to somebody, I'll do so with my arm around them. Not my finger. A soft answer.

Proverbs says. Not just an answer. A soft answer. I was a chef at the depot and we had a lot of people come up on the train that were with like tour buses and things.

And most of the people that came up on those tour buses were elderly, retired people that came up to see the leaves and they would barely eat anything. I never ran out of food. Well, one day the railroad failed to tell me that this tour bus that was coming up was a group of bikers. Big bikers.

Well, I was out of Salisbury State 20 out of the 40, 20 people into the 40. So Donnie Carr is right off the kitchen. So I could hear this guy cursing, swearing, demanding to see me. The waitress comes into the kitchen and she's like, you know, hey.

So I'm, you know, like working myself up, you know, because I heard what this guy's saying. And I'm walking out to fight fire with fire, right? And the Lord says, soft answer turns the way around. And it just stopped me in my tracks.

So I waited a minute. Rethought things went out, apologized to the man. Explain what happened. I mean, you know, I had 20 demonic mistakes cooking at the time, you know, to feed the 20 that didn't get fed.

And within a minute, that man was apologizing to me for his behavior within 60 seconds. Now what would happen if the Italian would have rose up in me, which was if my flesh wanted to do? I don't think it would have ended well. So a gentle answer, a gentle or mild answer, turns away wrath or a harsh, is said in a Hebrew.

It's hurtful or painful speech. We don't want to do that to one another. Amen? I don't want to do it.

So it's interesting because we have this idea of concept, rather, of called blessing and cursing. So when we bless or when we curse, of course everything is happening through the mouth. And let's look at James 3, verses 1 through 10, it says, my brethren, let not many of you become teachers knowing that we shall receive a strict judgment, for we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man.

Able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in people's mouths or in horses mouths that they may obey us and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships, although they are large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot desires, even so the tongue is a little member in both great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles.

And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. It is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature and is set on fire by hell. This is serious stuff, people. Amen?

For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no man can tame the tongue. God can't. It is an unruly evil fool of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and we curse men who have been made in the similtude or likeness of God.

Out of the same mouth, proceed blessing and cursing my brethren. These things ought not to be so. God doesn't like that mixture. We were worshiping this morning.

Out of our mouth, praises to the Lord. And then we are going to turn at one o'clock at lunch and gossip about somebody. Not to be so. Not to be so.

First Peter, 3, 8, 9, finally all of you, be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love his brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous, not returning evil for evil or reviling, which is verbal abuse, but on the contrary blessing. I love the scripture. It doesn't tell you just what not to do. It tells you what to do in its place.

So no return verbal abuse. It's hard when somebody is giving it to you. It says no, no, don't return it, but bless them. Come on.

That's God talk. You want to turn the situation around? Fight fire with Jesus instead of with fire. You know, it says compassion for one another, love, tenderhearted, courteous, all these things.

If you want to do an interesting word search in a concordance, look up the words one another. You will find a slew of one another's in the New Testament. Love one another. Forgive one another.

Be courteous one another. Greet one another. It's on and on and on. Let me tell you what's not in there.

Criticize one another. Everyone say, it ain't in there. Condemned one another. It ain't in there.

Gossop about one another. Not in there. It's not in there. No.

On the contrary, we bless. And what's written in yellow up there? Knowing that you and I have been called to this. I have been called to be a blesser.

And so have you. That you may inherit a blessing. So we don't return. Even when it's coming to us.

But we bless. We are called to this. Sometimes you can get a hold of first Peter. If you get a hold of that verse, it will change your life.

Become a blesser. Embrace the call of God to be a blesser. Some months ago, Pastor Fred was teaching on a Thursday night. And he was talking about blessing and cursing.

And blessing, if we just want to define it a little bit, a blessing, I try to recall a lot of what he said. I don't take notes. But a blessing is a spoken declaration of divine favor or well-being for another person. I mean, it could even be a place or thing, but we're talking primarily today about people.

It imparts God's grace and promises and is intended to strengthen, encourage, and comfort the recipient. When you bless, you are speaking words that are in agreement with God. So let's say Whitney has a foul mouth. Okay?

Pickle Whitney. So I believe in church and she's out there and I hear her curse. Well, is she still with me? She's still a child of God?

All says, I purpose to know man after the flesh. Second Corinthians 5, 16. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. So I look at Whitney, you just go down cussing and I go, that's a new creation right there.

That's a new creation. I'm not even going to tell her you're a new creation. Now, what if I don't want to stop cussing? What's the matter with you?

I've got it back. Right? Now I want to bless her. I want to speak truth, favor, grace, the things that are going to set her free.

Not that things are just going to put another scar in there. Why do I want to do that? A curse is a spoken declaration meant to harm another. We speak words that are not in agreement with God but are indeed in agreement with our enemy.

The devil is an accuser. We don't want to be accusers. I'm just checking. The heartbeat of God.

The sound of grace, I realize something. Grace has a heartbeat. It has a heartbeat. God's heart is beating for you.

I didn't get my phone out. I remember a story by the time a kid who was in church and the worship team went to move up on the stage and he said, Dad, what's that mean? He said, well, that's the worship team. They're going to sing a few songs first.

Then the offering people came up to go to the buckets and the voice says, Dad, what's that mean? He said, well, they take off offering money with the church and so that's what that means. Then the preacher got up to preach and got his watch out, put it on the table and the voice says, Daddy, what's that mean? He said, absolutely nothing.

A lot of truth to that. But we could be right and wrong again at the same time. We could be totally right in what we're saying and wrong in how we say it and we just erased everything, the effectiveness of our speech. Hello?

That's true. I've said that differently but the same thing many times, David, right. In Matthew 15, verse 10, it says, when Jesus had called him altitudes to himself, he said to them, here and understand not what goes into the mouth, the files of man, but that which comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man. It's a bold statement, but it needs said.

If you have a mouth problem, you have a heart problem. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And verse 18 through 20, but those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adultery, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

These are the things which defile a man. Defile means to make unclean or impure, but the root word means to make common or ordinary. I hope it's nobody's goal in here to be common or ordinary, especially in our speech. Excellence.

Excellence of speech. I want to lift you up and not tear you down. I want to build you up and not crush you. Come on.

Well, but sometimes people just got to tell people, you know, sometimes you got to tell them the truth. I'm not opposed to any of that. You need to tell them the truth. I'm talking about the hell, just the hell.

Matters. Matters. How can you be evil, speak good things, brood of vipers, Matthew 1234, how can you be evil, speak good things? Can I just change that verse just a little bit and say this?

How is it that we haven't been made righteous, say evil things? Not be. How should we have been made righteous, speak evil things? Shouldn't be happening.

Amen? It's a hard problem and only God can go there. I can't heal your heart. I can't fix it.

God can, though. He has mine, especially in this area. Do you know people may disagree or not believe us rather, but Terri and I have been married 13 years and only one time has she been said a harsh word to me. And I don't think I've ever said a harsh word to you.

Maybe once. We just don't do it. We decided when we got together we weren't going to do it because we know what it can do to a relationship. Now, I'm not saying there have been times that she wanted to.

Okay? She chose. She surrendered her tongue. I've had people ask me before if cursing, scriptural cursing is the same as saying bad words down here.

And I've heard arguments on both sides of that. I personally don't believe that saying a bad word is the same as a biblical curse. However, I do believe that scripture teaches against both. It says, if he says let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth.

Excuse me. But what is good for necessary edification? That it may impart, here we are again, grace to the hearers. Remember Jesus said in the very first scripture we looked at, today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing or in your ears.

Just again, the importance of how we hear. That we may impart grace to the hearer. That's what I want to do. When I leave a room, when I leave a situation, I want to have imparted grace.

How about somebody to feel better about themselves than they did when I got entered the room? And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Now that comes right after the sentence about our speech. By whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, and clamor. Clamor is shouting. Are you a Shower? I can remember one time I was in the car with my kids who were coming back from Mission City and I was a screamer.

And I heard myself. And I looked at the rear of your mirror and I saw the look on my kids faces. I was scared to death. And I thought, my God, what am I doing?

All I was doing was repeating a pattern. But I don't want to repeat that pattern. I don't want my kids feeling that. But that's what it took for me.

I used to clamor a lot. And evil speaking, be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another. Tender hearted, forgiving one another. Even as God in Christ forgave you.

Even as God in Christ forgave you. So when you're met with somebody who's wronged you, listen, all you've got to do is think about what he did for you. It becomes really easy to forgive somebody else. The old covenant was forgiven to be forgiven.

The new covenant is forgiven because you've been forgiven. I have received his grace. I have received his forgiveness. I'm going to extend it.

Do we sound like Jesus? James 1, 26 says, if anyone among you thinks he is religious and is not bride or was tongue, but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. Euceless. I don't want my faith walk to be useless.

So God, God, give me excellence of speech. Help me to abound in speech. Lord, do what you need to in my heart that my mouth can speak the right things. Life and death are in the power of the tongue.

Not right and wrong. We're good at right and wrong. I'd like to live with a life and death paradigm. Is this life?

Is what I'm saying life? Or is it death? If I'm not to say something, I can ask myself, well, Phil, is it right or wrong to do that? But Paul, if it's right or wrong, he might have a different view of right and wrong.

It's okay, go ahead and say that. You know what I mean? Or whatever. No, you shouldn't say that.

Is it life or is it death? Am I building up or am I tearing down? We all know when the faucets being turned. And we're about ready to unload on somebody, right?

We've all been there. No? Walk away. Better just to not say a thing.

Come back when you're able, right? Speech or speech. Matthew 26, there's an interesting story I have the verses wrong on there. Peter is, this is a story of Peter if you're getting ready to deny Jesus.

It says, now Peter sat outside in the courtyard and a servant girl came to him saying, you also were with Jesus of Galilee, but he denied it before them all saying, I do not know what you're saying. And when he had gone out to the gateway, another girl saw him and said to those who were there, this fellow also was with Jesus of Nazareth. But again, he denied with an oath. I do not know the man.

And a little later, those who stood by came up and said to Peter, surely you also are one of them for your speech, the trays. In other words, you sound like him. You sound like him. Don't tell me you're not with him because you sound like him.

Now in Mark's account, we understand that some of this has to do with the fact that they're both from Galilee, so there must have been an accent or something. But I think it goes much beyond that because look at the next verse, what does Peter do? Swear. Is he accused of sounding like Jesus?

He sounded as unlike Jesus as he possibly could. Then he began to curse and swear saying, I do not know the man. He had a rooster crowed and Peter remembered the words of Jesus. He had said to him, behold, before I was a rooster crowed, he would deny me three times.

So he went out and went bitterly. He sounded like him. And then he didn't sound like him. There was a verse of scripture that I used to hate to read.

If you love me, Jesus said you obey my commandments. I hated running into that verse because I always felt, I was never totally obedient. I just felt like I must not love God. I was always beating myself up.

I hated to read it. One day I came across that verse. I wasn't looking for it. I came across it.

I couldn't even read it with me. I just stared at it. And the Lord spoke to me and he said this. He said, if you love me, you obey my commandments.

Changed everything. Because I was reading it. If you love me, you obey my commandments. In other words, proof of your love.

If you love me, you obey my commandments. Wait a minute. You mean if I just love you, Lord? If I just love you, I will obey.

Come on. But I had to hear it from him instead of my brain. I now ask the Lord when I open the word, I say, Holy Spirit, read it to me. Read me your story.

I don't want to get it wrong. And there's a heartbeat to scripture. If it's alive, it's got a heartbeat. Because if the heart ain't beating, it's dead.

This will never die. Do we sound like Jesus? Do you sound like Jesus? Do you want to sound like Jesus?

Think about the woman called in adultery. How did he say, did any of these, did any of these condemn you? How did he say it? How did he say it?

How did he say to the leper, Lord, if you are willing, I'm willing. How did he say it? How did he say, brood of vipers? You know, another instance of where I got this wrong was the word repentance.

Repentance is essential for salvation, for sanctification. We need to be, you know, it's a word that we really need to stop being afraid of. Repenting is changing your mind. It's okay.

I recognize that I'm not in agreement with God or that what I'm doing is offensive to God. And then as a fruit of my repentance of changing my mind, I turn from it. Acts 20 says, Paul says repentance toward God in faith in Christ Jesus. Repentance has a direction.

It's toward God. But if there's a word that has been misrepresented over the years, exactly. And I had a hard time with it because of that. And one day the Lord said to me, Philip, too many have preached this word with clenched fists instead of open arms and open hands.

And I realize repentance is an invitation. So did he say repent? Or did he say repent for the kingdom of God is in hand? Was it an invitation to a better way of life anew in a living way?

And they responded. Amen? And 2000 years later people were still responding. That's the Holy Spirit to begin to read you his word.

I want to challenge you with that. Ask him to read you his story. You know, all of us are written in to the book. We're written into his story.

Amen? The sound of grace. Let's stand. Oh, the Lord's good.

All the time.