1. Can you remember a time in your life when you heard some words that affected you deeply? 2. Do you know somebody whose life changed dramatically after hearing about what Jesus had done for them? 3. How has God been speaking to you about the way you use your words? 4. Where do you think the believers in the New Testament got the boldness to preach the gospel in the face of great persecution? Action Point: Ask God to put somebody on your heart this week that He wants you to speak worlds of truth or encouragement to, or pray for. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you boldness to do it!

hey guys and welcome to this brand new video series on the power of words my name is david steele and i’m the founder of truth planters and after i’d recorded the first video series for truth plants as it was called how to fulfill your calling i actually had a whole list of topics that i wanted to make videos on but at the beginning of this year i was in prayer and i just opened up my bible and it happened to open to proverbs 16 and there were these few verses that just jumped out at me and after i read them i felt god speak to me and so i want to tell you what those verses were and then i want to tell you what i feel god was saying to me and why this is the topic that i am filming this series on so proverbs 16 verse 13 says this kings take pleasure in honest lips they value the one who speaks what is right and then my eyes scroll down a little bit to verses 23 and 24 and it says the hearts of the wise make their mouths prudent and their lips promote instruction gracious words are a honeycomb sweet to the soul and healing to the bones and in that moment it was like i could feel the heart of god just saying to me david i need my people to understand the importance and the power of words it was like i could feel god’s heart grieving at how we are using words to hurt each other the fact that many christians don’t even realize that the way that they are speaking is actually causing so many problems in their lives it was like i could feel that god really wanted us his children to be able to use words in such a way that is going to bring life joy peace healing freedom not only into our lives but also into the lives of the people around us and it was like i could sense that god was saying david if my people can understand how to use their words in the right way and how not to use them in the wrong way the incredible fruit will come that they are not experiencing at the moment and so at that point i had to realize that god’s agenda was greater than mine and i had to put all my plans aside for the other videos that i wanted to make and the other topics that i wanted to teach on and i’ve been on a journey where god has been teaching me a lot about this topic and and my prayer is that god will use this video series to dramatically transform your life and cause you to impact the lives around you in a way that you’ve never been able to do before and you might be thinking yeah but david i understand that words have power in fact i think all christians understand that but how important is this really and in james chapter 1 verse 26 it says this those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight reign on their tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless so guys the way that we use our mouths is incredibly important to god and therefore it needs to be incredibly important to us and what james is saying here is that if we don’t get this if we don’t get this everything else is worthless and so he’s saying that anyone who thinks that they’re following god but doesn’t know how to control their tongue is actually deceived well that means actually they’re not really following god at all what they think is religious what they think is pleasing to god is actually not pleasing to god they’re deceived and actually i think that most people including christians actually have no idea what a huge influence their tongue this small muscle of our bodies is having on the direction of the whole of their lives guys look at this james chapter 3 verses 3 to 6 it says when we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us we can turn the whole animal or take ships as an example although they are so large and are driven by strong winds they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go likewise the tongue is a small part of the body but it makes great boasts consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark the tongue also is a fire a world of evil among the parts of the body it corrupts the whole body sets the whole course of one’s life on fire and is itself set on fire by hell did you see that the whole course of your life can be determined by the way that you speak and then it goes on in verses seven to eight and it says this all kinds of animals birds reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind but no human being contain the tongue it is a restless evil full of deadly poison wow i just want to say to you kind of in the introduction to this series that that’s right no human being can tame the tongue but i believe that what god wants you to hear today is that he can he is able to tame the tongue of a human being and set the whole course the whole direction of our lives in the right direction you know i didn’t realize but i was creating so many problems for myself and i was missing out on so many things that god had for me because i simply didn’t know how to speak the right things at the right time i knew very well how to speak the wrong things at the wrong time and of course we need to learn not to speak the wrong things at the wrong time and to be able to speak the right things at the right time and actually i realize now that i was sabotaging my whole life without even realizing because i simply didn’t know the things that i know today now don’t get me wrong i’m not saying i’ve arrived in this area i’m still learning i’m very aware of that and and often god will convict me david you shouldn’t have said that or you should have said this differently and he’s teaching me constantly in this area and i believe he’s been teaching you as well we are all learning how to tame the tongue how to use it in the best possible way but i am so thankful for god’s correction and for how he has been training me in this area and for the incredible life and peace and joy and fruitfulness that has come as a result and i am so looking forward to sharing a lot of the things that he’s taught me in this area with you in this series now that was quite a long intro so episode one is gonna have to be quite short but let’s jump straight into episode one i wanna talk about how words change lives you know my mom when she was about 19 years old she got very sick the reason she got sick is because some people spoke some words to her about dieting about eating about what would be healthy for her body words that were not true they taught her some things that were not actually going to be helpful for her body but she believed them and she started to change her diet because of those things and my mom actually ended up with anorexia she ended up getting very sick she ended up losing all the strength from her body and there was this point at about 19 years old where she had been in bed for almost a year unable to live a normal life anymore and she was laying in her bed and she said she doesn’t know why but a few years before that she had painted a cross on the wall of her bedroom she didn’t come from a christian family but as she laid in her bed and she had absolutely no hope for the future no strength in her body she looked up at that cross and she called out jesus and she says that as she called on the name of jesus it was like she went from being in a deep dark pit where there was absolutely no way out and there was no hope to being pulled out of that pit and seeing a hope and a future for her life she said she did not get instantly healed of anorexia in that moment but somehow she knew that she was going to get better and things were going to be okay and she had hope that she never had before isn’t that interesting that words took my mom into that situation and actually one word a name the name of jesus was powerful enough that when she called on that name when she used that word it dramatically changed her life and as i was growing up i remember that my mum used to travel around the area that we lived in singing songs about what jesus had done for her and now what’s really interesting is my mum didn’t really know who jesus was or what he had done for her when she called out on his name it was only a few months later when she met some people in a park in the town that we lived in and actually they they explained to my mum who jesus was and why her life changed so much when she called on his name and actually my dad has a story and that’s also quite powerful my dad grew up in a family where actually he didn’t have a dad for the first 10 years of his life so he missed out on a lot of words of affirmation and encouragement and some of the words that we really need to become strong and whole and emotionally healthy human beings he says that he can never remember his mum or his dad saying to him i love you and my dad didn’t do very well at school maybe the lack of affirmation and encouragement was one of the things that that made it difficult for him and by the time he got to the age of 17 he was taking drugs and he was actually sniffing powerful solvents glue sniffing and so he used to breathe in these glues and it would give him a high and it would make him feel better but of course it was doing huge damage to his lungs and his body and to his brain and one day at the age of 17 my dad was walking down the street and he felt this sharp pain in his chest and he said david it felt like i was gonna die in that moment and he kind of bent over on the street probably looked like he was about to collapse and felt like he was about to collapse he said to me he felt like this was this was it he was gonna die and you know a man came out from a building my dad didn’t know this man and he came over to my dad and he started talking to my dad and he started to pray for my dad he used words he prayed for my dad who was in a desperate situation do you know my dad’s life changed that day those words and the power that god brought into my dad’s life because of those words that that man prayed completely changed my dad’s life and he never went back to drugs so somehow these words have spiritual power and it’s interesting isn’t it because god could change our lives in absolutely any way he wanted to but he chooses to use words you know we hear the gospel don’t we romans 10 17 says consequently faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word about christ and then we declare with our mouths that jesus is lord romans 10 9 if you declare with your mouth jesus is lord and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead you will be saved it’s interesting isn’t it that this is how god designed it to happen that first of all the gospel would come to us through words and then that we would actually receive it with words now of course it’s more than just words isn’t it we know that it’s faith and repentance in a person’s heart but actually we express jesus is lord with our words and romans 10 13 says everyone who calls on the name of the lord will be saved well maybe that’s what my mum experienced on that day and then of course there’s a third part to this romans 10 14 to 15 it says how then can they call on the one they have not believed in and how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard and how can they hear without someone preaching to them and how can anyone preach unless they are sent as it is written how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news so somebody has to speak the truth somebody has to speak the words of the gospel so the third part of this is that those who have received the gospel continue to proclaim it with words so that more people can hear it and then of course they hear it they believe it they speak it out and then they share it with others and this is how the good news of the gospel spreads throughout the world and the bible says that that is beautiful and actually that’s a quote from the prophet isaiah isaiah 52 7 it says how beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news who proclaim peace who bring good tidings who proclaim salvation who say to zion your god reigns so you see god desires that we use our mouths to proclaim good news to proclaim peace to proclaim salvation so here’s my challenge for you in episode one are you using your words to change lives are you proclaiming salvation with your words who do you know that’s struggling right now who do you know that needs to hear about the peace that has been made available to them because of what jesus did on the cross for them let’s just go back to romans 10 and verse 14 it says how then can they call on the one they have not believed in and how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard and how can they hear without someone preaching to them who could you pray for this week whose life could you impact this week with your words whose shoulder could you lay a hand on and speak life changing words over who could you send an a text message to this week with a scripture that’s going to bring truth and freedom and life into the heart of he or she that reads it you see at the end of episode 1 i just really want to pray for us that god would give us supernatural boldness to proclaim his salvation and his peace into the lives of those around us and as we go on in this series i want to talk about a lot of things i want to talk about gossip and slander i want to talk about words that hurt and words that heal i want to talk about how we can use our words wisely i want to talk about where our words actually come from and how we can change the words that come out of our mouth i want to talk about when the words of others have pierced our hearts and how we can be healed of that and i want to talk about the two most powerful sentences that we can use so before we get into all those things let’s just pray father we just want to thank you right now that you have put your word into our lives we want to thank you lord that we have bibles that we can read your word and that your word transforms our hearts and i want to also thank you that you’ve put your words in our mouths that we can speak your words into the lives of others lord and we want to thank you that words change lives and i just ask right now that as we begin this series you would come you would fill us with your holy spirit and you would give us a supernatural boldness to use our mouths to use our tongues to use our words in a way that we see lives changed around us and father would you just enable us to come before you at the beginning of this series in humility and with great faith that you are going to teach us things through this series that are going to dramatically transform our lives and the lives of those around us lord would you teach us to be wise would you teach us to speak those words that are like honeycomb sweet to the soul and healing to the bones in jesus name amen i’ll see you in episode 2.