Joyce Meyer - Is Your Mouth Saved? (08/22/2019)
Joyce Meyer delivers a powerful message on the life-changing impact of our words in her series "Change Your Words, Change Your Life." She challenges believers to guard their mouths, stop complaining, eliminate destructive phrases like "sick and tired" or "to death," and replace them with praise, thanksgiving, and positive confession – because words carry power for life or death, and thankful speech opens doors for God's blessings while murmuring keeps us stuck.
The Power of Words – Change Your Words, Change Your Life
I'm doing a series called Change Your Words, Change Your Life. And I really believe that if we change our words, it will change our lives. How many of you have had teaching about the power of your words, and over the years you've been able to make some really positive changes, and you have seen a big change in your life as a result of that?
Well, that's wonderful. But you know what? There's more hands still down than up. So that means we need to do this. How many of you are glad to hear it again, even though you've heard it before? I know I am.
Proverbs 21, 23 says, He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from trouble.
Wrong Words Bring Destruction
I believe that wrong words bring destruction in our lives. I'm actually calling this message tonight, Is Your Mouth Saved?
At one time I did a whole series called, Is Your Mouth Saved? Because God told me that although I've been saved for many years, I didn't sound saved.
You know, people can't see our heart. They only see what we do, they hear what we say. And it's very important that we are good representatives for God, because that is what we have been anointed and set aside for.
When God's anointing comes on us, it comes on us to consecrate us and set us apart for a special purpose. And that means that we do not have the privilege, which is really not a privilege, but sometimes we think it should be, to just live like everybody else lives.
How many of our problems are the result of our own words? Do you ever really listen to what you say? Or listen to what people say? Because I've been writing on this subject and studying it pretty intently for the past couple of years, I've been paying a lot more attention to the things that people say.
Common Destructive Phrases We Use
One of the things that people say to me all the time, Joyce, I love you to death. Well, it's like, I'd really rather you love me to life. You know, why are we so transfixed with, I just about laughed to death. I love you to death. Oh, I tell you, that just about killed me.
We don't need to be talking about stuff like that. If we believe a lot of our words are important, then we need to pay attention.
So, some of the things that I've been hearing... Some of you saw this on TV. I tell you, I'm just sick of this. I'm sick of all of it. You make me sick. My job makes me sick. I'm sick and tired of all of it.
Sick and tired. Sick and tired. Sick and tired of this house. Sick and tired of going to work. Sick and tired of doing dishes, diapers. I'm sick and tired of it.
And by the way, all of you drive me crazy. You kids are driving me crazy. I feel like I'm going crazy. And I hate cleaning this house. I hate driving in traffic. I hate my job. I hate my hair. I hate my body. I hate my skin. I hate my whole life. And this is all killing me.
Why We Have So Many Problems
Now, I'm telling you, I wonder why we have problems. Can anybody figure out why maybe we have a few problems? I wonder how many times in your life... Somebody help me here before I hurt myself.
How many times in even a year do we say things like that until we learn better? And thank God we can learn better. You can get to the point where you wouldn't say anything like that. There would be no way that anybody could get you to say anything like that.
Because you have a revelation. I don't want to just give you information tonight. I want you to have revelation. I want you to have revelation on the power of your words.
That the power of life and death is in the tongue. And that some of these things that we just make light of and don't think are important at all are very important not only to you but to the kingdom of God.
They're important to God. He has entrusted us with words. And we need to speak them carefully.
Words are powerful. They contain power. You can hurt people with words, you can bless people with words. You can hurt your future with the words that you speak now. Or you can help your future with the words that you speak now.
Now, please begin to say things that you actually really want to have.
Is Your Mouth Saved? – Stop Complaining
Is your mouth saved? One of the things we do with our mouth that is a much bigger problem than what we might think is we complain, complain, complain, complain, complain.
When we should be praising and giving thanks, praising and giving thanks, praising and giving thanks.
Now, what is praise? Praise is, if you look at the definition of praise, it says, It's a narration or a tale. And so praise is actually telling some good thing that God has done for you.
If you are going to praise a person, you tell some good thing that that person has done. Or you remind them of a good thing that they have done. You praise them for a job well done.
If we are going to praise God, and we know that praise is a very important part of the word. We are taught really from cover to cover to praise God, to fill our lives with praise for God.
And what that really means is that we need to remember what God has done for us. We need to think about it. We need to remember it. We need to talk about it.
You know, even when you're out with people, why don't you try doing something like this? Well, tell me something great that God's done in your life. Tell me about a time when you were having a problem and God gave you a breakthrough.
We need to stir one another up to talk more about the great things that God has done in our life. And especially, and I'm going to prove it to you scripture tonight. Especially when we are having problems.
When you're having a current problem, the best way to encourage yourself and to put the devil in his place is instead of talking about the problem, instead of complaining about the problem, to talk about something wonderful that God has done for you in the past.
When you do that, it's going to encourage your faith to believe that God can do it again. If he did it once, he can do it again.
And you know, we all like to think that. There's a song that was very popular for a few years called, He'll Do It Again. And even still, we can have somebody come and sing that song and people just clap and cheer.
Because we all want to believe that what God has done for us at one time, he will do again. That we can look for a miraculous breakthrough in our lives.
But we're not going to get it complaining. Complaining is a sin. It's not a little oops. It's a sin.
When you complain about what you have, you keep it. When you complain, you remain. The word complain means to remain. Murmur means to stay overnight.
If you want to stay right where you're at, just keep grumbling and complaining. But praise always precedes progress. Did you hear me?
If you complain, you can remain. But if you want to have progress, you've got to praise.
Praise and thanksgiving is the thing to do when you're in trouble. Pray about what you need to pray about and cover your prayer with praise on one side and thanksgiving on the other.
You might think about it being like a sandwich. You start with a piece of bread and you start with praise. And you praise God for a while before you ever bring up the petition.
Then you put the meat on the sandwich. You ask Him for what you want. Then you put the other slice of bread down there and that becomes your thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving – The Key to More
And this is proven out in Philippians. Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. Be anxious for nothing but in all things by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Let me ask you a question. If you're already complaining about what you have, why should God give you something more to complain about?
That's what He told me one time. I was praying but had a lot of complaining in my life. Asking God to do this and that but complaining about stuff.
And He said why should I give you anything else to complain about? I'm not going to do anything until you get thankful for what you've got.
How many of you love thankful children? How many of you tell your kids all the time, well you quit complaining? Stop complaining. Don't you know what all I've done for you? Can't you ever be satisfied?
I do a lot for you and you don't even notice what I do for you. Well, I think God's the same way.
We need to stop complaining. How many of you will admit that there are probably very few days that go by that you don't complain about something? Come on, not one of these things.
I want to see them. If I said do you want a miracle, you'd get it up there.
I remember a time many, many, many years ago when we first started doing conferences. And we've had conferences, meetings in every kind of a room that you could imagine. Many of them not very nice.
And when we first started, we were in a hotel ballroom one night and it was just not nice. I mean, just not nice. I mean, there were things hanging out of the ceiling and some of the chairs had rips and tears in them.
And I started in murmuring and grumbling. I was walking around on the platform before the meeting started looking the place over and trying to do some praying.
I was like, I can't believe this place. I wouldn't even think that they would rent a place like this to people.
And the thing that got impressed on my heart was this. If you can make it through these early days without complaining about what you have to deal with, the day will come when you can have a conference anywhere that you want to have one.
And I tell you, that's pretty much the case today.
Don't Despise Small Beginnings
We need to remember where we've come from. Back here in the back, in the hallways back here, there's some little rooms off the hallways. And Dave brought me over to one of the rooms yesterday. It's got about 50 chairs.
And he said, you remember when we used to have meetings in rooms like that? 15, 20 years ago, probably 20 years ago, that's where I would have been. I wouldn't have been out here.
I would have been back there in the very little square, boring room with 50 folding seats set up and a little pulpit in front preaching my heart out.
And you know what? Those days are good for us. It's good to go through those days. Do not despise the day of small beginnings.
And don't complain your way through small beginnings. Because if we cannot learn to be thankful for those things, trust me, you will not be thankful when God gives you more.
Because going through the hard times and remaining thankful builds character in us. It develops godly character in us that we need to remain stable when God gives us more to be responsible for.
Complaining is a sin. And it opens many doors for the enemy. And I want to encourage you. Maybe you don't even think you do all that much complaining. Maybe you don't. I don't know.
Maybe you're a perfect person that doesn't complain. But I bet if you start really listening to yourself, you'll find all kinds of things that you complain or murmur.
Complaining Keeps You Stuck
You know, women are good at murmuring. You know, the little stuff under our breath. You asked for your kids, quit complaining about them. You wanted a husband, quit complaining about him.
Come on guys, you wanted a wife, quit complaining about her. You wanted a house, now don't complain because you've got to clean it. You wanted that new car, stop complaining when you have to make the payments.
Hallelujah, you ate the food, stop complaining because now your hips are bigger.
We should have a goal to be the most thankful person on the face of the earth. Start every day with thanksgiving and go through each day thanking God for little things like hot water and a friend and every convenience that you have and thank God for your salvation.
Thank God for what you know. Thank God and keep thanking Him. It's a place of power. Thanksgiving is a place of power.
Philippians 2, 14. Do all things without grumbling and fault-finding and complaining. How many things? All things. All things.
That means drive to work in traffic. That means do your dishes, clean your house, pay your bills. Do all things. And do it for the glory of God.
Just do it as an exercise for the glory of God. God, I want to get through every day of my life and not complain because you are so good to me that honestly and truly I have nothing to complain about.
There is no reason for me to complain with your great mercy.
Without grumbling and fault-finding and complaining against God. It's interesting and you are going to see in other scriptures that when people complain, even if they are complaining about another person, God takes it personally.
You know why? Because out of one side of our mouth we say, oh I believe God is in control. I believe God is directing my life and He is in control of my life.
And then most of the places where we end up, we end up complaining about them. Even though we are saying that we believe that God is in control.
So we need to just say, you know God I don't like this very much but I believe you are going to work something good out of it. I believe you have got a reason and a purpose and I am going to thank you in this situation.
Because I believe that you are a good God that can work good out of bad stuff.
How many of you think that sounds better than just murmuring all the time?
But now watch, let's finish reading what this says because this is really beautiful.
And do it that you might show yourselves to be blameless and guileless, innocent and uncontaminated, children of God without blemish, faultless, unrebukable, in the midst of a crooked and a wicked generation, spiritually perverted and perverse, among whom you are seen as bright lights, stars or beacons, shining out clearly in the dark world.
Now this is just a very practical challenge. The Word of God is saying, you're my people and I want you to talk different than people out in the world.
I want you to have a different attitude. I want to hear something different coming out of you than everybody else.
It's very dark out there. And so let's just start by not grumbling, finding fault and complaining.
And instead, you get out in that dark world and you become a bright light. You become the bright light that's giving me praise and glory while everybody else is murmuring and complaining.
How many of you think we could do that for God? Let's give Him all the praise we possibly can.
Praise Leads to Progress
Now remember what I taught this morning. Amen. Remember what I taught this morning that the more we give praise and thanksgiving, the more positive things we say, the more we can increase our joy.
So guess what? The more thankful you are, the happier you're going to be. And the more you're thankful and say so, the happier the people around you are going to be.
Instead of finding things to complain about at work, find some things to be thankful for.
Praise goes ahead of progress. The Israelites appear to be a group of people that were quite dumb. However, I have to say most of us are just like them.
If you go to Deuteronomy, it says that they spent 40 years trying to make an 11 day journey. Why have you wandered in the wilderness these 40 years trying to make an 11 day journey?
11 days straight across that desert, from Egypt to the Promised Land, 40 years they're wandering around out there.
God said you've been at this mountain long enough, it's time to go forward.
Some of you have been at the same place long enough in your walk with God. You've been dancing around the same problem long enough. You've been going through the same thing over and over and over long enough.
Getting upset about the same stuff over and over and over. Have you noticed it's not moving? Maybe that means you're approaching it the wrong way.
If you've been complaining every time that thing happens that bugs you, Then start thanking God and giving praise and see if that will move it.
Praise is more likely to move your mountains than murmuring and grumbling.
They wandered out there 40 years trying to make an 11 day journey. They thought it was their enemies. We always think it's the devil. It's the devil, it's the devil, it's the devil.
But it really wasn't their enemies. It wasn't any of the ites that lived out there. The Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, or any of the other ites.
It was their attitude. They grumbled and murmured and complained about literally everything. Everything was Moses' fault and God's fault.
And every time they got uncomfortable, they wanted to run back to Egypt.
So we're going to look at some of the things that they complained about and some of the things that happened to them because of their complaining.
Now I don't know about you, but I'm hoping to impress on you tonight that complaining is a real big problem. This is not just a nice little preachy hoorah message.
But I'm trying to get you to understand that complaining opens a door for the enemy.
When we murmur and complain, we invite the devil to bring more destruction into our lives. Amen?
You say, well, I can't be that big of a problem. Well, just wait and see.
Exodus chapter 15. One man said, well, I'm not complaining, I'm explaining. Well, I agree there are times when you have to talk about a messy situation or you do need to explain something, but we know in our hearts when we've stopped explaining and when we've started complaining, right?
It's like I said this morning. Talk about your problem when you need to, but don't rehearse the problem over and over and over and over. That's when it becomes complaining.
And especially this fault-finding spirit that gets in the body of Christ. Don't you hate that fault-finding spirit? Somebody always finding fault with everything. They always find what's wrong, can't see the good in anything, but there's always something else wrong.
I don't like that spirit and I don't think God does either. I used to have that spirit on me, but I don't anymore.
The Israelites' Complaints – Exodus Examples
Exodus chapter 15, verse 24. The people murmured against Moses saying, what are we going to drink?
Chapter 16, verse 2. And the whole congregation of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
Verse 3. And he said to them, we just wish that we would have died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots and ate bread to the full.
For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
So, they don't have water. They're not getting to eat what they want. Now they have forgotten that God did part the Red Sea. That when they left Israel, that God did all kinds of miracles.
That they were hidden in Goshen while God bought all kinds of destructive plagues on the rest of Egypt. That when they left, they left with all the silver and gold of the people.
And that they were on their way to the Promised Land. They forgot all the things that God had done.
And then every time they had a problem, they murmured and they grumbled.
What they should have done would have been stopped and remembered. Well, God, we're thirsty, but we remember that you parted the Red Sea. So, we know you've got a plan and you're going to bring us a breakthrough here.
Well, God, we're getting hungry, but we remember what you did in Egypt. And so, we're going to remember what you did and praise you and thank you for the breakthrough that's on its way.
Folks, let me tell you something. We would see God doing so much in our lives if we would do that rather than acting like the rest of the world.
We don't need to murmur and grumble. Listen, if you've got a job, you don't need to ever grumble about your job because there's somebody that will take it off your hands.
I'm going to say it again. If you have any kind of a job, and I feel conviction falling, then you need to thank God for that job.
Because there's somebody that would take that job off your hands and be happy to have it along with every circumstance you murmur about.
Maybe you don't like your hours. Maybe your boss isn't perfect. Maybe you're not being paid what you're worth. Maybe the benefits aren't great.
But you know what? If you've got a bed to sleep in, a roof over your head, clothes to put on, you're better off than most of the world. Amen?
So we need to stop murmuring about stuff, including me. I'm reminding me as well as you.
We need to stop murmuring about stuff and start giving God more praise and more thanksgiving.
Let me tell you something. God is looking for worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and truth. He's not looking for somebody who will come into church and worship and then go back out in the world and talk like everybody else.
He wants worshipers who worship. Worshippers, it's not something they do, it's who they are, so it's what they do all the time.
God wants praisers and worshipers, not just people who are singers of songs and who get happy when the music's good.
But when they have to get around a situation that's not perfect, then right away we're murmuring and grumbling and complaining about everything and forgetting how good God has been to us.
You know what? I had a rough time in life. And I spent a lot of years murmuring and grumbling and feeling sorry for myself.
But you know what? God has restored everything in my life and given me back many times over everything the devil took.
And God wants to do that exact same thing for you. But God did not do anything in my life until I stopped grumbling about everything and stopped feeling sorry for myself and stopped blaming and having a bad attitude.
Now I could have gone to heaven. I don't go to heaven because I got a good attitude. I have salvation because I believe in Jesus Christ.
And I truly believed in Christ but I didn't have any joy. I didn't have any peace. I didn't have any victory. And I sure was not helping anybody else.
And I was miserable. And a miserable Christian is an oxymoron. There's no reason for a Christian to be miserable.
We should be the happiest people on the face of the earth. Amen?
It's one thing to be a miserable sinner, but it's totally improper to be a miserable saint.
One of the ways we can make ourselves happy, happier, is by changing the way we talk.