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• Illustration: May tells a long joke about a group of people traveling in a car whose careless words get them increasingly in trouble with a patrol officer.
• We talk ourselves into trouble.
• Matthew 12:22-37

• What you say is extremely important.
• What is the unpardonable sin? The most significant thing we need to realize about it is that it is a sin that is committed with WORDS.
• Matthew 12:32
• Illustration: May quotes John MacArthur and William Barclay on the “unpardonable sin of Matthew 12:32, concluding that “the person who has committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will lose all desire and inclination to be right with God, and will no longer care about being forgiven.”
• Matthew 12:37
• With our words we can heal; with our words we can destroy. With our words we are condemned; with our words we are acquitted.

• Matthew 12:33-34
• Illustration: May speaks with admiration of a mother who corrected her children’s misbehavior, not by addressing the behavior, but by demanding a change of heart.
• If you want a changed heart, you have to submit yourself to God—you have to give him your heart—so that he can change you.
• Psalm 51:10
• Illustration: May quotes the lyrics of the song, “Change My Heart, O God.”

• Illustration: After pointing out how instant communication (cell phones and email) enable us to too hastily respond to one another, May tells a brief anecdote of hurting someone with careless words via cell phone and resolving to handle conflict face-to-face.
• Matthew 12:36

• Big Idea: We need to take seriously the words we say, because our words reveal who we really are.
• Since harsh and careless words are the result of a heart problem—a spiritual problem that only God can fix—submit your heart to him and ask him to change it.
• Decide right now that before you allow careless words to cross your lips, you will think before you speak.
• Matthew 12:37