Tuesday, August 30, 2011
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Now, there's one good way to recognize the places that folks think are important—the guards. Yeah. I mean, they obviously think the White House is important; there are guards all around it. The bank usually has a guard. There are some club communities that I've seen where you don't get to even go into the neighborhood until the guard says, "Yes, somebody left a name here at the booth. You can go in."
Of course, there are guards at the airport, military installations, the ballpark. Oh, we know that important places need to be guarded; they need to be protected. You know, there is one important place in your life that really needs a guard, and probably doesn't have one. And it's not because of what will get in—it's because of what's getting out.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Guard Could Save You a Lot of Grief."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Proverbs 13:3. It has to do with a part of you that may be doing quite a bit of damage, and it needs a guard, because important places have guards. Proverbs 13:3 says, "He who guards his lips, guards his life. But he who speaks rashly will come to ruin." A few chapters later in Proverbs 21:23 it says, "He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity." Boy, haven't we all learned that one the hard way?
I guess what God is talking about here is lip guard. Now, it's not a product I'm selling, but we do need the kind of lip guard the Bible talks about. Romans 3, an interesting passage, because it describes for us that "there is none righteous, no not one." And then in describing the sinfulness of us human beings, it gives the anatomy of sin. In the early verses it describes how our body actually carries out sin. And it mentions six specific, physical things that are involved in sinning. One time it mentions the eyes, one time it mentions the feet, and four times it mentions (guess what?) the mouth.
One could conclude from that, that most of the sinning we do, we do with our mouth. You probably let something go today verbally that may have hurt someone. Maybe it hurt another person, or maybe it hurt your reputation, or their reputation, or your chance to get something you need or want. Maybe it hurt the reputation of Jesus Christ. Sins of the mouth—they're the most common; they're the most damaging. They're the most accepted, and they shouldn't be.
When you let Christ become the Lord of your lips—your lip guard—the master of your mouth, you're really getting serious about your faith. Proverbs links it to survival. It says, "You should guard your lips. It's like guarding your life. It's for your own good." But somehow there's that last word you've got to have, right? Or that hurting point you have to make, or the critical word that seemed so clever at the time, the sarcasm, the name you called somebody, the accusation, the put down. If we could erase words like tapes or the scars that they leave like we erase chalkboards, but we can't.
We need a lip guard. It's time to focus that transforming power of the Holy Spirit of Almighty God on our run-away lips. It's got to be a daily battle, joined early before you speak to anyone. Consecrate your mouth to the Lord at the beginning of the day. Ask for grace to pause before you shoot someone verbally. And then start enjoying some victories; things that were almost said but you thought about them, prayed about them, and you never spoke them.
Don't let your mouth run on like it has been. Ask your Lord to guard your mouth. After all, important places have a guard, and nothing you have has more affect than your mouth. So, keep your lip guard handy.