Criticizing

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Good morning. Hey, we're in week two of my big fat mouth. I need a few weeks of this, okay? And we're going to get into it in just a moment. Would you please pray with me? Lord God, this day we do pray that the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts are acceptable to you. Lord, you know us inside and out. You know us better than we know ourselves, and we ask, Lord, that you uncover those areas of deception, those areas of untruth, those areas of bitterness and hurt that cause us to say things and to be with just the attitudes that don't reflect your goodness and grace, don't reflect the actual truth of who you are. We thank you, Lord, that we can bring our brokenness to you and who we are, all of us, the mess that we can be, and know that you bring healing, you bring restoration, reconciliation. We thank you for that. We pray, Lord, today, not just here at Thrive, but across your church in this entire area, that your love and your truth would reign supreme and that people would come to a deeper understanding of you, to know you more, and to love you more, and to reflect your love and truth in this community and world, a world that's filled, Lord, with so much negativity and criticism right now, Lord. And we pray that we could be a light shining in the darkness, that we could shine out, Lord, how you want relationships to be and how things do change in our lives and others' as well. So bless this time together in your word as we learn more about how our mouths can declare your praises. In Jesus' name, amen. It's good for you here, and if you came back after last week, thank you, because I know these are not easy topics at all. And last week, we talked about complaining. Did you have a complaint-free week? You tried, which is great, you know? We're working on it. Today, we're going to talk about criticizing, okay, criticizing. And let me tell you, it's rampant on the Twitterverse, if you ever get on it. It's our next-door site. I don't know if your neighborhood is like this, but I don't even want to look at it because of all the critical negativity, and it's just amazing how we tear each other apart. In addition to that, it's plotted across every news outlet, right, left, and center. It happens in our politics, at our workplaces, at our dinner tables. Criticism is everywhere. There's no place, no time, no situation that does not escape the curse of criticism in our culture of outrage. And some of you right now are going, amen, brother, preach it. Thank you, Jesus, my spouse is here today. I am going to link this so my boss can hear this. And my children, I don't know why they're over in Thrive Kids right now because they need this. It's interesting, isn't it? But the series is called My Big Fat Mouth, not Their Big Fat Mouth, okay? And I know that's the problem with criticism for me as well as for others because it's so easy to get caught up into it and not even realize I'm doing it when I'm doing it. And we kind of say, well, if you weren't so weird and if you didn't do, and if you would have just be on time, if you would just be caring about people, if you wouldn't spend money like that, if you wouldn't be doing this, if you wouldn't have gone on that vacation, and I know how much you're in debt, I wouldn't have to say anything in the first place. Isn't it interesting how we do that? So we're talking about criticism. We're looking at this verse, okay? Galatians 5, 13 to 16. For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. That's all we need to look at. There's enough in there today to hardly get through this today on criticism, okay? So, wait a minute. John, you're talking about, can I never say anything that would correct or, you know, I mean, can't I bring anything ever up? I mean, how do I raise my children if I have to always just say positive things? I've seen, haven't you seen that kind of parenting going on where it's just like always positive, so positive that you go like, oh, come on. And because, you know, can't you, we're not talking about constructive criticism today. We're going to show a little contrast between the two. So, you understand, I do expect to be corrected, okay? I need that. And I do need maybe even to be rebuked, as the Bible says. But there are ways to do it and there are ways not to do it. So, destructive criticism, this is how it happens. It's about personality or character rather than about behavior. Or it's filled with blame, you know? Or it's not even really focused on improveme...