Can I Say That? How to Not Regret Your Words 5 Minutes Later

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Emily Jensen
Welcome, welcome. My name is Emily Jensen. And just to make sure you’re in the right place, this is called Can I Say That: How to Not Regret Your Words Five Minutes Later. Buckle up, we’re getting ready to talk about using wise words for the next 45 minutes, and I truly hope I do not impede your dinner conversations too much, and you don’t leave wanting to just not say anything ever again. Okay, we’re just gonna warm up a little bit. I don’t know if you’re like me, and you were hungry and kind of ready to eat something, you need a little bit of a brain break, but I want you to think about the last time you said something that just kind of makes you cringe when you think about it. I hope it’s not that recent for you. For me, it’s like very recent. I have one from yesterday. I’m not even going to repeat that one, but last Saturday, my husband and I took a couple of our kids to a small town festival in Iowa, and while we were there, we went to one of those old-fashioned church bake sales, and inside I was looking at all the different pastries that were out, and I saw across the room someone that I recognized, you know, one of those moments where I’m like, I think I was in Bible study with her, or we had kids in the same thing, but I can’t really remember, and we’re smiling at each other. And here’s the thing, in small town culture, you cannot leave it at that. You have to go over, you have to say hi, and if you don’t remember their name, it’s very important that you clarify that, and you talk about the weather and about your kids. And so I’m headed across the room towards her, but I have a problem. I’m really awkward with my first line in small talk, like I’m notoriously bad at it, because I either have like 27 different thoughts going through my head or I have absolutely nothing. It’s like completely blank in there, and so I’m kind of rehearsing, I’m thinking, okay, hi, I think we used to go to Bible study together, remind me of your name, got it, I got it, and so we lean over the chocolate chip cookies, and I stick out my hand, and I smile at her, and I’m just like, remind me of your face, that wasn’t it, it wasn’t it, I did recover, I found out her name is Patty. We did used to go to Bible study together, and it was great, but it was one of those things that later, you know, I’m just randomly walking around at the festival, and like, remind me of your face, you know, comes back into my mind, and I’m like, oh, all right, misspeaks and awkward conversational moments happen to all of us. That’s not the kind of regret we’re going to talk about this afternoon. I cannot help you with that. Very bad at small talk today. We’re going to talk about words that wound, we’re going to talk about the regrets we have about the things that we’ve said that have caused damage to the people we love, and to our relationships, and to our reputations. All of you can probably think of a moment, whether it was like five seconds after it happened, five minutes, five days, or five years, where you had that deep regret about something that you said, maybe it hit you as you were driving home from a gathering with your friends, and you just are like, I dominated the conversation again. It was all me talking. I didn’t really ask anybody anything about themselves, and you’re like, I started a couple really heated debates that we probably didn’t need to have. Why did I do that?

Emily Jensen
Maybe it’s that you’re noticing your husband or your kids start to walk on eggshells around you, and you’re wondering if maybe repeated harsh critical words are causing them to just kind of close up and be careful around you, because they don’t know when you are going to lash out, maybe some of you work in a workplace environment that is pretty toxic, and it feels like every day you’re getting sucked into conversations where there’s gossip and people are criticizing leadership, and you don’t want to, you want to rise above, but you just find yourself sucked into it time and time again, and I think that when we recognize these things, when we think about them, whether it’s in the middle of the night, right, you want to go back to sleep, and instead you’re replaying things you said, or you’re in the car, you’re just by yourself, it can bring about like really bad feelings, can give you a pit in your stomach, makes me not. Want to eat anything can make your chest feel tight, can make your heart feel discouraged and despairing. But here’s the thing, we don’t just need to get a better handle on our words, so that we can avoid the bad feelings we get when we regret what we say. We need to get a handle on our words, because Proverbs 1821 says that death and life are in the power of the tongue. The stakes around our words are much, much higher than we imagine. We tell ourselves, well, I’m just venting, or I just have to pass on the information, or it’s just a prayer request, or well, if someone doesn’t point that out to my husband and children, they’ll never change, but again, we want to minimize it, but here’s the deal. Scripture shows us that our words are powerful, and they are extremely difficult to control. We are going to be all over the Bible this afternoon, but if you want to open up to James chapter three, we are going to camp here for just a moment, because James chapter three is one of the most potent sections in all of scripture about the power of our words, of all of our body parts, our hands, our feet, our ears, our facial expressions. James says in chapter three verse six that it is the tongue that is a world of unrighteousness, and I’m always shocked when I read this line, because it seems like it cannot possibly true. He says the tongue itself is set on fire by hell. I know something about you guys, and I’m going to say it like they say in Texas, y’all are nice people. Y’all are nice. Some of you have babies wandering around the back. You have cute toddlers and preschoolers at home. You’re grandmothers. You’re everyone’s favorite roommate. You volunteer in the church nursery. You bring meals to new moms. You guys are so nice. The Bible says that because you have a tongue in your mouth, you’re dangerous. You have a weapon with you at all times that has the power to unleash hell and do Satan’s bidding. Let’s go on to verse seven and eight in James chapter three. He says, every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and fish is tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no one can tame the tongue. It’s a restless evil full of deadly poison. Okay, see what he’s saying here. Every kind of animal can be tamed and has been tamed, which means he’s also talking about big cats. Have you ever seen those, like in a zoo, or you see it like how they have big cat sanctuary, so that’s not a place I want to visit, but supposedly there’s tame lions out there. I want to know which of you would be willing to let a tame lion come hang out in your living room for the afternoon, around your kids or your dog or your husband, or which of you would be willing to let a tame lion come to girls night. You would not. You’re not foolish. You know that a tame lion is not truly tame. It’s volatile. It is risky. Here’s the other thing he says, none of you, or here’s the other thing I know about you. None of you would serve your friends iced coffee laced with a little bit of cleaning solution.

Emily Jensen
You would never do that, and yet your tongue, your tongue is capable of bringing blessing and cursing, of being like poison to your friends. So, here’s, I think, the place that we need to start this afternoon, because if we have any hope of getting our tongue under control and in submission to Christ, we have to get real about what we are dealing with here, a lot of us are kind of control freaks about things, and it’s different things for all of us. I know that. Right when I got to my hotel room, I cranked the thermostat down to my preferred sleeping temperature, and my husband wasn’t here to. Turn it up a degree or two. We put a lot of effort into controlling things, to controlling our schedule, to controlling what we feed our kids, to controlling screen time. We put very little effort into controlling our tongue. Are you willing to put spirit-fueled effort into controlling your tongue. James three verse two says that if you learn how to control your tongue, congratulations, you are mature. You’re mature in Christ, and I am guessing that you are at the Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference, in part, because you don’t want to just be a lukewarm Christian, you want to make an impact for the kingdom of God. You want to make an impact for generation generations. You want to bear fruit. You want to be mature in Christ. Are you willing to do what James says in chapter four verse seven, and resist the devil in your words. So we’re going to spend the rest of the session talking about what it takes to get our tongue under control, not only to avoid words that we regret, but to speak words of life to those around us to say wise words, and so to do that, we’re just going to do two things. First, we’re going to learn something called the overflow principle. We’re going to find that wise words can only come from a wise heart, and then I’m going to share with you a very practical tool based on the whole book of proverbs called the Can I Say That test. I wish I had a cuter name, but I couldn’t think of one, so it’s just called The Can I Say That Test. And my aim is that at the end of this, when you’re walking out the door and you’re walking down the hall and you’re bumping into people trying to get to dinner, that you would better understand why you say what you say, and that you would have a tool to better filter your words and speak words of wisdom. I have a really quick housekeeping note before we move forward, because I am guessing that those of you note takers are getting hand cramped by now, like you’ve been through Melissa’s keynote, you’ve been through a breakout session. I am a note taker, I love writing everything down, and so I did something for you in the app under this session. If you add it to your schedule, there’s an attachment in there that has every verse I’m going to reference this afternoon, and every point. Yeah, okay. So, just like, chill a little bit. Okay, my goal is that you would just write down the things that the Lord is bringing to your heart, and then go back and look at the other stuff later. Okay, let’s start with our main point, which is just answering the question, why do we say what we say. Well, it’s because of the overflow principle, and I want to show you that you already know the most important scripture you need to know about the overflow principle. So, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to say the beginning of the verse, and you’re going to finish the verse. And please do not embarrass me by, like, whispering or not being loud, okay? Here we go, out of the overflow of the heart. Yes. Okay. Here’s a bonus question. Who said that? Jesus. Okay. Only some of you get to graduate from Sunday school. Okay. So Jesus in Matthew 1234 and Luke 45 gives us something you might call the overflow principle, and this simply describes the relationship between our heart and our words.

Emily Jensen
According to Jesus, it would never be accurate to say something a little mean, a little cutting, a little hurtful, and then be like, I didn’t mean that. No, somewhere down there you did. You did. If we are going to deal with our words problem, we have to start by dealing with our heart problem, because our words do not just appear on our tongue out of nowhere. No, they come from our minds that have been telling ourselves the same story for a really long time, comes from our feelings, from our belief system, our thought about thoughts about the way that things are. That’s where our words come from. I want to tell you a little analogy, and maybe you’ve heard it before, but I’m going to put a cute little esthetic spin on it. Okay, imagine you are walking through your house with one of those cute wide mouth glass cups, you know, I’m talking about with the round bottom, and inside your glass cup you’ve put some of that crunchy round ice, you know, like the good kind of ice, and. And you got yourself a glass straw, really fashionable, it’s a cute straw, and inside you put electrolyte lemonade, great summer drink, you fill it all the way up to the top, and you’re walking through your house when all of a sudden someone bumps into you and jostles the glass, now I’m not saying that the person who bumped into you is under three feet tall, but probably what happens to the lemonade in your glass, it sloshes out and it spills all over you, it spills all over them, it spills all over the floor. Why did lemonade come out? Well, because you had lemonade in the glass. If you had milk in the glass, milk would have spilled out. If you had water in the glass, water would have spilled out. This is what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 15, verses 19 through 20, when He says, “From the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slander. These are the things that defile a person. He says it this way in Luke 645 A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. But what does this mean for us? Well, it means if the cup of your heart is full of envy, eventually when the right person jostles you, slander is going to come out. It means that if the cup of your heart is full of pride and self-importance, eventually contempt for other people is going to slosh out. If your heart is full of insecurity, eventually gossip or people pleasing is going to slosh out if it’s full of bitterness and unforgiveness. Eventually, harsh words are going to slosh out. I want to tell you something great about the overflow principle. It works both ways. It works both ways. So, instead, if the cup of your heart is full of the Holy Spirit, then guess what’s going to slash out spirit-filled words. This is just what Melissa was talking about in her keynotes, of like the tree produces good fruit. The tree didn’t do anything to plant itself, but because it is alive, it is giving life. That’s what she said. So, if we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and we’ve been cultivating godliness and wisdom, eventually the fruit of the Spirit is going to slash out all over people in our lives. Good counsel is going to slosh out over the younger women in your life, and your friends. Encouragement is what is going to slosh out over your husband. Timely words are going to slosh out all over your children, and you’re not going to do it perfectly, but the Holy Spirit is what makes that happen. So, because of the overflow principle. What we know is that wise words can only come from a wise heart. You might be wondering right now, well, How do I get a wise heart? And unfortunately, this session is not titled, How do I get a wise heart? So we’re just going to camp here for a moment, and I will just say ditto to everything that Melissa said earlier, but I’m going to give you three quick places to get started.

Emily Jensen
If you want to grow in wisdom, you will grow in wisdom when you know who God is. When you know who God is, your words will change. Proverbs 910 says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. The fear of the Lord puts our tongue in its place, because He hears every single word we say. Nothing is said in private, and we won’t want to say things about those who are created in His image. We will know who God is. You will grow in wisdom when you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, because if you have not turned from your sin and trusted in Christ, there’s a 0% chance that the Holy Spirit is going to overflow out of your cup and slosh out all over people, I think it’s what we’re not saying here is that, oh, unbelievers, they never say nice things, and believers always say nice things. We know that’s not true, we know it, but what this is just saying is that apart from Christ, you can just like manage your speech, you can just like manage. Manage the spill, put try to put a lid on your cup, say a little bit nicer things. Only the Holy Spirit changes what’s in the cup. And finally, you will grow in wisdom when you understand where you fit in God’s world. You are not at the top, you are not the judge, you’re not the king, you’re not the savior, you’re someone who’s been brought into his kingdom by undeserved grace. And Jesus says that when you realize you’ve been forgiven much, you will love much, and it will change what you say. Okay, so we have learned that our words are powerful and extremely difficult to control, and we’ve learned the overflow principle that wise words come from a wise heart. Let’s talk about the Can I Say That test. This is a practical tool, and I think that something like the Gospel Club and Coalition Women’s Conference is such a blessing, because at every single keynote, every breakout session, you’re going to encounter seeds of the gospel. If you go to the expo center and you go to the bookstore, like every single one of those books, right, has some sort of gospel connection or gospel seed. And so, what sometimes happens is that we get good at communicating what the gospel is, but we just really don’t understand how it changes our lives. We don’t understand how it changes our words, and we need practical help and practical strategies to remind us of who God made us to be in Christ. We don’t think that way automatically or by default, and so the goal of this is not to be like some weird self-help tool. It is truly to remind you that God made you to speak and live in alignment with and in obedience to Him. You will feel most fulfilled and most delighted when you are walking in His will, and sometimes we need reminders in order to speak that way. And this is also important, because as a believer, you know that in this life, until you reach heaven, you will still struggle against your sin nature. You need the word of God and the Holy Spirit, and sometimes practical tools, right, to help you obey God. Okay, let’s get into the four questions, and the ‘Can I Say That’ test. I’m just warning you now that you guys are all going to really like at least one of these questions, and you’re not going to like some of the other ones, but this is like four wheels on a car. If you take one wheel away from a car, it cannot drive anywhere on three wheels. You need to pass all four questions. So, let’s get into the first one. Can I say that? Is it true? Unwise words are deceptive, but wise words are truthful. Proverbs 1222 says that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. Abomination is not a word that we use very often. We don’t get in a traffic jam and say this is an abomination to me. No, but abomination means like the strongest possible hatred and disgust, God hates, hates, hates lying, and He hates lying because it’s the absolute opposite of what He is, which is truth.

Emily Jensen
Proverbs 30 verse five says every word of God proves true, He cannot lie. It is only Satan who is twisting the truth, deceiving people, not presenting things as they truly are, which means what you are being like God when you tell the truth, and you are being like Satan when you lie, I think that a lot of us have gotten good at pointing out things that are satanic, and there’s a lot to choose from, honestly, out there, you know, like, do things ever come up on your Instagram feed, and you’re like, that is satanic, what are they doing, or maybe we run across something, you know, in an aisle of our favorite store, and we’re like, that’s so weird, that’s like satanic, or maybe it’s certain decorations that people put up certain times of the year in their yard, and you’re like, that is so weird, that’s satanic. The word satanic literally means like it’s characteristic of Satan. Have you ever thought about this? When you’re in your own home and you’re lying or you’re deceiving or manipulating, you are in a way being satanic that makes me feel a little sick. This includes exaggerating. I’m going to confess something to you. I wasn’t sure if I was going to confess this or not, but we’re rolling, so let’s go. Last week, someone asked me, “Hey, how many people are coming to your session? I knew the answer, and it was like, you know, a few people more. I could have rounded down or rounded up. I rounded up. That is messed up. It’s messed up, because what I wanted to do somewhere deep inside of me, I wanted it to just sound a little bit better than it was. We do that, and we call it a white lie. Where is that coming from? Okay, so again, lying might also include leaving out important details that would shift someone’s opinion of the situation, making yourself sound like the hero of a story when the truth is a little bit more complicated than that, it might mean passing on information about another person that you cannot verify and have not verified. This pertains to social media things you’re sharing that you just cannot know to be true, and by the way, being truthful does not mean that you have to give every person every detail about every situation in your life or share everything you think about how they look, the choices they make, or how they act. That’s not what we’re talking about when we say sharing truth. We’re sharing truth that reflects God’s truth, not our opinion, not our version of truth, not the world’s version of truth. I remember I told you some of you guys are going to like some of these, and a few of you were like, ‘Got it, I love saying true stuff. Oh, sorry, but we’re not done yet. We’re not done with the test. Let’s keep going. The next question to, can I say that, is well, is it helpful? Unwise words are destructive; they tear down, but wise words are constructive; they build up. Proverbs 1627 through 28 says a worthless person digs up evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire. Nope, did you hear the fire stuff again? A contrary person spreads conflict, and a gossip separates close friends. This is saying that we avoid words that set fire to our relationships, that includes being a constant contrarian. I love a good strategy session, but I’m a little freaked out by the term devil’s advocate. Some of you, like, I love being a devil’s advocate. Are you sure that that’s what you want to be? Are you sure words that tear people down bait people into arguments, or they share stories that tear down other people’s reputations. But conversely, Proverbs 14 one says that a wise woman builds her house. A wise woman’s aim is to use her words to help people become more of who God created them to be, and see them flourish. When I was a brand new wife, I did not understand this principle.

Emily Jensen
My husband and I had our very first, like, big argument on the way home from our honeymoon in the Jamaican airport, I mean, I should have known we were tired, you were sunburned, and we’re sitting there, and my gainfully employed on his way to upper level management engineer husband told me that he had an idea to start something called the ABC Hair Cutting Academy, I Okay, and so he starts talking about a video series, and I’m imagining our garage is filling up with clippers and capes and things like that. Something you need to know is that today my husband is a very accomplished entrepreneur and small business owner, but I wasn’t making that connection. All I could think was, like, I’m going to be the wife of ABC Hair Cutting Academy, and I did what any reasonable wife would do. I said, Absolutely not, that’s a horrible idea, and that started the argument. So, here’s what Time showed me: my husband was not going to start ABC Hair Academy, Hair Cutting Academy. He was just dreaming with me. That was like one of 400 ideas he went on to show. Share with me. After that, my blood pressure drops, like I’m still trying to get it under control. It’s still scary, but in that moment he did not need me to be the no monster. He needed me to listen and to speak words that encouraged him and were helpful. Our husbands need helpful words. Our kids need helpful words. Our elders and our pastors need helpful words. They need words that build them up. Well, Emily, are you saying that I just have to blindly affirm people, even when they need correction? No, I’m not saying that because sometimes helpful words initially wound and initially they hurt. Proverbs 2717 says that iron sharpens iron and one person sharpens another. So when we’re thinking about speaking words to other people that help them, we’re not just thinking about what would be most helpful and most comfortable to them right at that moment. We are thinking about who they are in Christ and their long-term good. As a quick aside, silence can be unhelpful, can’t it? Silence can also be destructive, so I know we’re talking a lot about words, but keep that in mind when you’re wanting to help people. Sometimes that means speaking up, and that can sometimes feel like the hardest thing to do. Okay, so we’ve talked about in the Can I Say That test. Well, is it true, and is it helpful? And I want you to notice that both of those things deal with the content of what we say. The next question is, is it humble? We’re talking about the heart. Why are we getting ready to say this? Unwise words are spoken from a proud, hard heart, but wise words are spoken from a humble heart. Just get some definition, definitions here. Pride is simply an overestimation of our importance in God’s world. Proud person doesn’t leave any room for God, they take up all the space. And here’s the thing, pride leads to like all types of unwise speech. In fact, I would encourage you some time to read through the entire book of Proverbs and just look for what it says about words. There are somewhere between 30 to 50 different types of words mentioned in the book of Proverbs, and almost all of them can be seen as a downstream effect from pride or a downstream effect from humility. Our pride significantly affects what we say, and also proud hearts tend to produce a lot of sound effects. Do you ever notice yourself not saying anything, but you’re like that includes eye rolling. I’m going to say something that convicts me here for a minute. Proud people like to talk a lot. Unfortunately, sometimes proud people are the people at Bible study or small group, and like it’s me who answers every question, because we think we’ve got really great things to say, and proud people will cut you off mid sentence, because whatever they have to say is like more important than whatever you are saying right now. Proud people want to be vindicated. Proud people want to follow up on every hurt. Proud people don’t want to be corrected or questioned. Proud people find subtle ways to elevate themselves and make themselves look good.

Emily Jensen
Okay, I’m going to tell another story about a time I did this recently. So earlier in the week, one of my friends was picking up a kiddo of mine, and I said, “Oh, thanks for doing this this week. I’m going out of town. She said, “Oh, where are you going? “I’m going to this conference, it’s called TGC. Maybe you’ve never heard of it. She said, “Oh, I have. There’s a gal I like to follow online. I just love her, and her name is Amy Gannett. Now, immediately, like, my inner elf is like, I know her, I know her, and I wanted to just, like, kind of interrupt her and cut her off and tell her, yeah, and I’ve known Amy for 10 years, and I’m like on a panel with Amy, and like, Amy, Amy, Amy, and I’m going to see her when I’m there, but because I had been working on this talk, I just stood there, and I stayed very chill, and at the end she said, Well, if you see her, will you tell her I said hi, because I grew up with her sister, and I somehow controlled my tongue enough to just say sure, sure. What was going on in my heart? I wanted her to think I was cool and important because I knew the person who she thinks is cool and important, and I was internally going to try to find a way to steer the conversation, to reveal details, to make sure she knew I know Amy Proverbs 1618 says that pride comes before destruction and an arrogant spirit before a fall, and James four six says that God resists the proud but He gives grace to the humble. So, what’s humility? Well, humility is a right estimation of where we fit in God’s word or God’s world of ourself in relation to God, and notice I said right estimation and not low estimation, because we have dignity as image bearers of God. We do not speak words of death over other people, and we do not speak them over ourselves. That’s not what humility is. But a humble person does know that they’re limited, and a humble person does know that, yeah, they still have a sin nature, and so they can’t trust their hearts all the time, and they can’t lean on their own understanding, and they probably need to ask more questions, and they might need to think for a while before speaking. Humble people ask other people about themselves. Tim Keller has this really great, great quote about humility that I love. He says, if you met a truly humble person, you would not think of them as humble, but happy and incredibly interested in you. I love that. I think that this reminds me of everyone. You know, we’ll have a friend that’s like really good at baking, or maybe you’re the person who’s really good at baking, and do you have a person in your life that’s like really, really good at something, and anytime you ask them about it, they’re like, oh, I’m just, I’m just horrible at that, I mess that up all the time, but you know, she has like a sourdough loaf that could win on the Great British Baking Show, that’s not actually humility. Humility is, you have a friend that’s really good at baking, and when you ask her about it, she’s like, I know, I just love it, I got into it during Covid, when can I bring you a loaf? She denied that she was good at baking, she expressed her joy, and she turned it back to you, and hopefully you get some bread out of it. Okay, humble people say things like I’m sorry, and will you forgive me. Those are hard words to say, aren’t they? Proverbs 1017 says that people who listen when they are corrected will live, but those who will not admit that they are wrong are in danger. You can admit you’re wrong because your eternity is secure in Christ. Are the words that you’re speaking coming from a heart of pride or humility? Or so we’ve gone through our test, we’ve talked about the content, has to be true, it has to be helpful, and now we’ve talked about your heart, it needs to be humble. Why are you saying those words?

Emily Jensen
Because you want to make much of you, or you want to make much of them, you want to make much of God. And the last question is, this is it wise? Let’s talk about wisdom for a minute, because wisdom is a little different from knowledge, from knowing something. You might know that your friend is doing something that is disobedient to God’s word, but wisdom knows when to talk to her, how to talk to her, what questions to ask, and how to say it in a way that she might receive it. You might know that a post you see online is, it’s like diabolical, you’re like, this is not true at all, but wisdom knows when to comment and when to not comment. Most of the time, it’s to not comment, when to reshare, when to not, when to engage. Wisdom can kind of take all that in and put it in its right place. Proverbs 1523 says a person takes joy in giving an answer in a timely word. How good that is, and that is in contrast to a proverb like 2520 that says singing songs to a troubled heart is like taking off clothing on a cold day, or like pouring venom. Her on soda, imagine that wise words are true and helpful, but humble words are said at the right place and at the right time and in the right tone. So we’re going to dive into those for just a moment. This is a tool that I adapted for my pastor, because he said that I was like, that’s good, I’m going to remember that, because it’s hard for us to kind of make wisdom tangible sometimes. What does that mean to approach them in a wise way? Well, let’s talk about it. First of all, we need to think about where is the right place to say these words, not everything belongs in a text thread. Is this something that you ought to say in person? Because the more likely that something is to hurt someone, or be hard for them to hear, or be misunderstood, that probably means the right place is face to face. The other thing to think about is place is like, is this in public or is this something that should be said in private, just one on one with them. You know, I had this happen recently. I was in the car with one of my kiddos who was being a little bit disrespectful to me, but their friend was sitting right next to them, and we were driving their friend home, and I really, in that moment, just wanted to be like, you need to stop talking to me that way. I wanted to deal with it right then, and I just thought to myself, you know, I just don’t know if this is the right place, because I think her friend is going to feel really uncomfortable, and she’s going to feel pretty humiliated, and nobody’s, you know, getting really immediately hurt. I can, I can wait a few minutes. The right place was after her friend got dropped off, and we were in the car alone together, and we got in a few minutes down the road. That was the right place. Similarly, have you guys heard the phrase? This could have been an email. Okay, not everything needs to be spun up into a big deal. We can let a lot of things go, can let a lot of things go. The next piece of wisdom is time. Wisdom considers timing. What’s going on right now? Is it the heat of the moment? Has everyone had a chance to cool down? Is it the end of a long day when everyone is tired and emotionally depleted? We have this like epic memory of driving back from the Iowa State Fair last summer, and I think that we had been there for like 14 hours or something like that. I don’t know if anyone had had any protein all day. We’d mostly had funnel cakes, we’d been on rides, everyone was sunburned, we’d been to a concert, and it might have been 11pm and we were getting people into the car, and I mean the whining was on like epic levels, and they want hamburgers now. They’re starving, they’re crying, and I could just see my husband, you know, starting to boil.

Emily Jensen
He’s like, ‘We have to deal with this whining right now. And it was like, I think that this isn’t the right time. I think we all just need to get home and get into bed. No one was going to learn a life lesson about whining in that moment. We all just needed to go to bed. In general, cool hearts produce calm, wise words and hot hearts produce harsh and fiery words. It is often not wise to try to resolve a conflict when emotions are running high. It’s often not wise to try to solve a big conflict after the sun has gone down. Sometimes you can wait until morning, so whenever possible, it’s wise to create space between an offense and your response, for your sake and theirs, because what actually happens in our brain when our nervous system is turned on and we’re really hyped is we can almost only really speak from that strong emotion, from our anger, our fear, our sadness, our pain, but when we calm down, we can then tap into that part of us that’s like, okay, what do I really want, what does God want, and then we can think rationally. Proverbs 1528 says the heart of the righteous ponders how to answer. Take time to pray, seek wisdom, let your heart settle a little before you speak. Okay, the final piece of wisdom here is tone. Wisdom considers not just what is said but how it’s said, the volume, the intent. City, your facial expressions, your body language, sarcasm, inflection – all shape how words are received. Have you guys seen that trend on social media, where there’s like a phrase, and it’s like, ‘Hey, say it mad, say it flirty, say it discouraged, you know, something like that, and it just shows that words can take on totally different meaning. That’s why speech is more than just choosing the right words. You can share pregnancy news to your parents, who are first-time grandparents, and a different tone of voice than you’re going to share it with your friends who just had a miscarriage a couple of months ago. Okay, so we talked about the fact that our words are powerful and extremely hard to control. We talked about the overflow principle that wise words come from a wise heart, and we did the “can I say that” test, that we should speak words that are true and helpful and humble and wise, because they’re set at the right place, in the right time and in the right tone. How are we doing? What are you feeling like they can’t say much after that? Like some of us get this and we’re like, ooh, lot of stuff that I think and that comes out of my mouth can’t pass that test, and I just want to encourage you that one valid takeaway might be that you say less. It might be as you are growing in wisdom, it might be that you choose more and more to just wait to speak. Proverbs 1019 says that when words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise. Some of you throughout this have had specific situations and people come to mind, and you’re thinking about things that you’ve said, and I just want to take a moment and comfort you with a verse from First John one nine that says, if you confess your sin, He is faithful, He is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Bring it to the Lord, and if you have someone that you need to repair a relationship with, go do it, but all of us need some hope, don’t we? Because if our tongues are this powerful and they are set on fire by hell, what hope do we really have at controlling our tongues, not much, but we can fight fire with fire. There is one whose words are like fire, and they can quench the fire of the enemy and fill us with his spirit. His name is Jesus. He is the only one who is more powerful than our tongue. There is only one name who can tame our tongue, Jesus. There is only one who can provide the antidote to our poisonous words.

Emily Jensen
It is Jesus, and I love everything Melissa said, and we’ve already seen this morning about turning our eyes, because that’s really what it takes, because when the words of Christ have spilled his life and his goodness all over you. It will change the things that you say to others. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for who you are. We want to just recognize that you are holy and that you do hold us accountable for every careless word we speak, and yet you have also given us the power of your spirit to fill the cup of our heart with words and thoughts and hearts that can bless you and can give life to others, and that is what we want to do. So, Lord, as we leave here today. I just pray that you would help each woman to know what a takeaway might be for her, and that you would give her a wise heart, that she would be a blessing in her words to those in her life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.