Shaping Your Own World (11 of 12)

Mike Connell

I want to share with you some things today that will help you. I'll develop them in depth or in a different way a little later on into next year, but we were talking last week about the words we speak, the words that God spoke. They are spirit, and they have capacity to bring a power to bear in the world, beyond what's just natural around us. He said the words I speak, they are spirit, and they are life. So when Jesus spoke words, many things changed. The supernatural was released. There was a spiritual dimension unlocked as He spoke the word of God, and so the Bible's very clear that, when you and I begin to start to tame our tongue, and master our tongue, begin to speak differently, our life's direction will begin to change. We looked at several areas that we wanted to change, but the most important one, the one I want to look at today, is the shaping your own world, shaping your inner world by the word of God, because if you don't shape or change what's inside you, mostly what's outside you will remain - there'll be very little change.

I talk and counsel a lot of people at times, and always they're looking for something outside them to shift. The belief inside is that if just I get a better chance, or if I just win Lotto, if I just strike it lucky or something, if I just get a break, that they're looking for an external thing, and they're putting their hope in something external that will actually shift everything for them. Reality is, it doesn't work that way. We had a guy over the road from us, and he thought that way. He won $50,000 in a scratchy Lotto thing, and so he was very happy for a little while. He thought his whole life would change. I thought well, you know, unless he's changed on the inside, it'll be about a year, and he'll have lost it all. In the end I couldn't stand it, and went over and said listen, for goodness sake get a house, do something with your money. It was all just being frittered away. He'd already done $25,000 when I intervened, and tried to help him and give him some advice to actually help him get direction.

Because he didn't change inside, a change externally didn't make any difference. You can run away from your problems, but the problems are inside you, and so next place you go, the funny thing is, the same things are happening there. Okay then, so we want to look about changing your inner world, and particularly my focus is on the words, shaping your world by the word of God, and particularly words you speak. I want you to look with me in Ephesians, Chapter 4, Verse 29. So first thing we want to look at is changing the way we speak, changing how we speak. Paul has been writing about what Christ has done for us, and the position He's given us, and now begins to talk about how you live your life. He talks about some changes to make in our lifestyle, and here's one of them. He says - Verse 29 - let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. In other words, he's saying you need to change the way you talk, after you've given your life to Christ. You need to change the way you speak. The life before Christ, we tend to speak all kinds of negativity, all kinds of things are in our hearts and life, but we come to the Lord and our inner life changes. We're born again inside.

Then he says you need to change how you speak, and how you address the outer world because, notice this, he said you should let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. That's stop doing that, then look what he tells us to do. He says but rather speak words which are good for edification, or building up. Just stop there for a moment. He said change from negative talk, critical talk, putting down talk, destructive talk, bitter talk, harsh talk. He says begin to actually start to commit yourself to speak words that are building up words, that acknowledge good things, that honour people, that value people, that appreciate people. Start to speak differently. Now notice this: he said speak words that are good for edifying - notice this - that they may impart grace to the hearers. That word impart means to transfer, or to put into someone's life, to bring into them something which they need. The word grace always in the Bible refers to the power of God. By grace you're saved, in other words the power of God that changes us on the inside, when with faith we respond to Christ.