Good Word a 1980

I'd like to read one verse, half a verse, from Isaiah 50, verse 4. The Lord has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary. The Christmas season is a time when, in many ways, people are more open-hearted, more generous, easier to get along with than at any other time of the year. But the Christmas season is also a time when those who are hurting hurt more.

Somebody who's lonely will very likely feel more lonely over Christmas. And a person who, much of the time, feels like they're left out will feel even more left out during the Christmas time. It is especially rough for them.

Even if their relatives and friends invite them over for dinner, they'll be sitting there, but they still feel left out. Most of us here, no doubt, can look back on some Christmases when we were the ones who were hurting. We know what it's like to be walking among the Christmas trees and the pretty lights and hearing the carols and getting the best wishes of all our friends, and still it's as if there's this invisible wall of cotton that separates us from everybody else.

We're in another world. Now, even though we know firsthand what it's like to be hurting inwardly when everybody else seems to be celebrating, now that we have experienced some degree of healing, and have some peace in our hearts from the Lord, which we indeed want to share with other people, when somebody comes into the room who is going through what we weren't once we're going through, we're at a loss. We just don't know what to say.

Sometimes they literally beg us for a word that will encourage them or restore their faith. It's almost as if they're on their knees crying out, say something to help me. And we try, but how often our words just kind of drop like dead stones to the ground.

We know they're without light. The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I may know how to sustain with a word, Him that is weary. Lord God, give me such a tongue.

There's a death in the family of one of our friends. So we go to visit. They take us aside and begin to tell us how discouraged they are.

Where is God now? They ask, and we try to comfort them. And sometimes we start quoting scriptures to them. And that even while we're talking, we just know that we're not getting through.

It's like trying to throw a life ring to a drowning man and seeing it laying about halfway there and watching him go down. Sometimes a person who's almost a total stranger asks us about the meaning of life. And we want to give the right answer.

Here's somebody, Lord, who wants to know. They're open. I don't have to twist their arm.

Help me to get through. And we often feel as if we're watching a man in a burning building 15 feet from our own window, 10 stories up. Yet we have nothing to put across to get him to safety.

The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary. The thing we notice about our Lord is that he had that kind of tongue. He knew how to sustain with a word him or her that is weary.

He had a word for the sick and healed. He had a word for the sinner that brought them to repentance and right into the kingdom. With a word, he lifted up the fallen.

Excuse me. With a word, he raised the dead. And the people wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.

No man ever spoke like this man to the officers who were sent to arrest Jesus and just couldn't do it. But Jesus not only had word, words that were spirit and life. Every time he opened his mouth, he promised that those who believe in him would be able to speak with the same word and accomplish the same thing.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, if anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. Excuse me.

And these rivers of living water coming out of the heart flow across the mouth. The proof, the evidence that Jesus Christ in fact lives in us is that our speaking, our ordinary day in and day out conversation conveys to people the life of God. There's a place for prepared sermons and prepared teaching and lessons.

Those letters that we write very, very thoughtfully and carefully to our friends. But it's the words that come out of our mouths in a normal, ordinary daily round that heal the sick and raise the dead. Either make the tree good and it's fruit good or make the tree bad and it's fruit bad.

For the tree is known by the fruit. What's he talking about? He's talking about the words that come from our mouths. You brood of vipers.

How can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. Now, if we have the Holy Spirit and if we're walking in the spirit, surely it's not too much to expect that from the spirit dwelling within, we should be able to produce good fruit with our mouths.

To come out with a good word in our homes, especially in our home. A good word on our jobs, among strangers, among friends, a good word. Now, a good word has nothing to do with eloquence.

It's not a matter of learning or of skill. A good word coming from our mouths, from God, will be the inevitable result of a good word from God burning in our hearts. Again from Isaiah, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns.

Now, who can bring good tidings, publish peace, publish salvation, say to Zion, the church, to Israel, to all who seek, your God reigns. Who can do that but the person whose heart is saturated with the goodness of God? How can I tell anybody with any assurance and authority that God lives and that God is good unless God lives in me and unless his goodness is cleansing and possessing my heart? The best Christmas present we can possibly give is a good word that will bring some encouragement, some healing, some hope to the people around us. Now, understand, I'm not talking about words without deeds, words of love without deeds of love.

If somebody's hungry, we give them bread. If they're thirsty, we give them something to drink. But on top of the very best deeds that we perform in the name of the Lord, there must be a living word.

Has to be a word. What a wonderful transformation will take place in our families, especially in our families or households, wherever we live. On our jobs, when we begin to produce good fruit from our mouth consistently, a good word for other people is something we need to be asking God for.

Where else are we going to get it? And he said to them, which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within. Do not bother me.

The door is now shut. My children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.

I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, his opportunity, he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And what is this bread he's banging the door to get? He's asking for a good word to give to this friend who's traveling and come and is weary and needs to have something that's going to sustain him. It is the spirit that gives life.

The flesh is of no avail. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And why does God give us the Holy Spirit? So we can have joy bells and goose pimples? No, he gives us the spirit so that a good word can at last come out of our mouths, starting where we are.

And we are encouraged by this parable to persistently bang on heaven's door and keep asking and continue to ask until it comes. Lord, I'm not going to leave your door until you give me something good to speak to the people around me that I might have something that will encourage that. Now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness while thou stretchest out thy hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of thy holy servant, Jesus.

Again, they were asking for a good word. Now, very often we think, yeah, I wish I'd get a good word once in a while. You know, why do I always have to give it? Look, that's not your problem.

That's not my problem. Our problem is to give it. You know, and so if any of us are sitting here right now thinking, oh, you know, I wish somebody would give me a good word.

Forget that. What about you? What about me? They asked for it and they received it. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.

A good word for others is something we not only have to ask for, but it's something we have to open our hearts to receive. He not only banged on the door and jumped up and down and screamed and made lots of noise in the middle of the night, he also opened his heart expectantly, waited, knew it would come. And it did.

Don't stand around and wish that God would give you something good to say. Know that he will. You ask, you will receive.

Open your heart and know that God will give you the tongue of one who is taught that you may sustain with a word him that is weary. Now I anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over.

So what happens when my cup runs over? Out of my heart flows rivers of living water for those around. Now, once we've begun to receive this good word from God, its freshness and its power and its freedom to flow will depend largely on our day in and day out attitude. And the angel said to them, be not afraid.

For behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which shall be to all people. For to you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. You can be sure that the attitude of the angel was goodwill.

No man, no woman, no angel is ever given a message of goodwill if they have not a heart of goodwill with which to carry that message. If our heart, if our attitude is goodwill, we will have a good word when it is needed. If our attitude is sour, how can we expect to have that good word when it is needed? How can a sour well give forth sweet water? Finally, once we speak the good word, we're never to worry about the results.

The results belong to God. If we have spoken a good word from God to those around us, normal conversation or however it is, we can be sure that God will confirm the truth of what has been said to those who are receptive. The good word is like a seed we plant in the soil and we can just leave it there.

We don't dig it up every five minutes to see if it's growing. It will grow all by itself. You don't have to call them up the next day to find out how impressed they were with what you said.

You don't have to follow them around to make sure they're taking your advice. You plant it, you leave it, and you know that where it found receptive soil, it will grow in its time. The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary.

May God help us to take this promise of the spirit, first really given to the Messiah himself, then through him to us and make it ours. May God send us forth from this assembly today with a good word from him for the lives we're going to touch in the coming days, starting right in the place where we live. Let's wait upon him in prayer.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, Lord God, you know why our mouths are so often unable to come forth with life. And we pray that before we leave this place today, you would so deal with our hearts that this may change. We're not asking for some dramatic thing.

We're just asking for something real that will be experienced by those that we touch day in and day out and then by those that we meet along the way and that will also have plenty, even for those that we'll maybe see for the first time in a year. Deal with our hearts, Lord God.