PAUL TRIPP

PAUL TRIPP
MINISTRIES, INC.
Idol Words December 19, 2006
Paul David Tripp: We do not want to think that perhaps our biggest problem with
communication exists inside of us and not outside of us, but that’s exactly where it is.
When you look for help for your world of talk, do you look in the right place?
Kate Crowley: From Paul Tripp Ministries, this is Right Here, Right Now, connecting the
transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Here, now, is Paul Tripp.
PDT: I just don’t know how else to say it. He had me hooked. I’m not exactly sure how
it happened, but I was actually determined somehow, some way, I would get his respect.
I was going to get this man’s respect.
I was his pastor, and he had made it very clear that he didn’t respect me. He had made
it very clear in many ways. He had made it very clear in private, and he had made it very
clear in public. This man had me hooked. He thought my leadership was immature, and
he thought my preaching was a joke. In fact, he said once, “You know your preaching?
You’re killing us, Paul.” And in so doing, he really did hook me.
I had a whole new mission for my ministry. My preaching not only had helping people as
its purpose, it got a new purpose - getting this man’s respect. And the more I tried to
preach to please him, the more this man’s respect eluded me. And the more his respect
eluded me, the more hooked I was on getting it.
When I would stand up to preach, everyone else’s head was a normal size except this
guy. He had the eyes of the Mona Lisa that seemed to track everywhere I looked. His
head looked about four feet big to me, and he had huge, disapproving eyes. My world of
talk had been hooked. My world of talk had been kidnapped, and it was eating me up,
and I didn’t even know why. I’m not sure how it happened. I’m not sure exactly when it
happened, but he had me hooked, and I didn’t know how to get myself out of it. I had a
whole new purpose. I was going to do anything I needed to do to get this man’s respect.
Music: “Wonderful Remark” by Van Morrison
How can we listen to you
When we know your talk is cheap?
How can we ever question
Why we give more and you keep?

How can your empty laughter
Fill a room like ours with joy?
When you’re only playing with us
Like a child does with a toy?
How can we ever feel the freedom
Or the flame lit by the spark?
How can we ever come out even
When reality is stark?
That was a wonderful remark
I had my eyes closed in the dark, yeah
I sighed a million sighs
I told a million lies to myself, to myself
KC: “What About Your Talk?” That’s the new series from Paul Tripp coming up on Right
Here, Right Now. The purpose of this program is to help you find freedom in Jesus
Christ right here, right now. And you can help spread the word that Paul Tripp Ministries
can be heard Monday through Friday at 11 A.M. right here on WFIL.
You’re invited to log on to paultrippministries.org, where you can pick up a copy of Paul’s
book, War of Words and other video, audio, and print resources. That’s
paultrippministries.org. Right Here, Right Now continues with Paul Tripp.
PDT: Now, I know I’m not the only one who gets hooked. You get hooked too.
Somehow, some way, your world of words gets kidnapped. You don’t want that to
happen, and you don’t intend that to happen. You don’t say that you’re going to let your
words be dominated by the approval of a certain person, but it happens. Why do we use
words to get what we want instead of to achieve what God wants?
Here’s the reason - because our biggest problem with words, get ready for this, exists
inside of us and not outside of us. No, we don’t really want to live admitting that that’s
true, but it is really true. We want to think that maybe our biggest problem is outside of
us. Maybe we’re the exception to the rule, so we say, “She makes me so angry.” “He
pushes all of my buttons.” “I just didn’t have the time to sit down and discuss it
calmly.” Or, “If you had my children, you’d yell too.” Or, “She brings out the worst in
me.”
Now, what do all of these statements do? All of these statements provide something
important. They provide self-atonement. They work to convince me that my problem is
not me. All of these statements take us off the hook because they work to convince us
that our biggest problem with words lives outside of us and not inside of us.
But you have got to hear this. The Bible says something very different to us. The Bible
really does describe exactly why that man hooked me in the way he hooked me. The

Bible says that the biggest problem with my talk is inside of me, and your biggest
problem with your talk is inside of you. And this means something very important. It
means that you will only begin to see change take place in your world of talk when you
quit looking outside of yourself and begin to look inside of yourself, and that is very hard
to do. We can have such an accurate view of the mistakes of others, of the needs of
others, of the wrong of others, of the immaturity of others, but we can be so blind to
what’s going on inside of ourselves.
And so, what God wants us to do is look into the perfect mirror of the Word of God that
shows us-us as we actually are. You see, we tend to look in carnival mirrors. The
carnival mirror shows you you, but it shows you-you with distortion. It may be the
carnival mirror of another person’s opinion, or the carnival mirror of my view of my
success, or the carnival mirror of cultural values, or family values. What I need is: I need
to see myself in the accurate mirror of the Word of God.
Think about what a mirror does. You wake up the morning, and you stumble into the
bathroom, and you look in the mirror, suppressing your screams as you examine the
damage that the night has done. Here’s what the mirror does--the mirror shows you-you
as you actually are. That’s what we need. You see, we get hooked, but we explain away
the way that we’re hooked because we do not want to think that perhaps our biggest
problem with communication exists inside of us and not outside of us. But that’s exactly
where it is. When you look for help for your world of talk, do you look at the right place?
Music: “Tangled” by Maroon 5
I’m full of regrets for all the things
That I’ve done and said
And I don’t know if
It’ll ever be okay to show
My face around here
Sometimes I wonder if I disappear
Would you ever turn your head and look
See if I’m gone ‘cause I fear
There is nothing left to say to you
That you wanna hear
That you wanna know
I think I should go
The things I’ve done are way too shameful
Oh
PDT: I want to look with you at some passages of Scripture that begin to point us to the
fact that our trouble with talk is inside of us, not outside of us. Listen to what Jesus
says in Luke 6:43 to 45…

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is
recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes or grapes
from briers. The good man brings good things out of the goods stored up in his
heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.
[Now listen to this.] For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”
Your words come from inside of you. They really are your heart overflowing. Now, what
does the Bible mean when it uses the word ‘heart?’ Heart is the biblical term for the real
you, the inner you. The Bible divides the human being up into two pieces: The outer
man, which is your physical self; and the inner man, which is your spiritual self. And the
Bible uses a lot of words for the inner man: mind, emotions, spirit, soul, will; and all of
those words are collected by one big basket term called ‘heart.’ That heart term is used
in some 960 passages of Scripture. It’s one of the most fully developed themes in all of
the Bible.
Now the heart is the motivational ‘you;’ the heart is the thoughtful ‘you;’ the heart is the
control center of the human being. So, your words are shaped not by the outside
situation; your words are actually shaped by how your heart interacts with the outside
situation.
Now notice the principle of the passage. It says, “For out of the overflow of the heart the
mouth speaks”… “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.”
My mom was a member of the depression-era family, ten brothers and sisters. This was,
what our culture would call, a classic dysfunctional family. These people didn’t like one
another very well, but they were committed to family reunions. And they were sort of
strange, creepy gatherings that would happen once a year, and there would be a hall
rented, or it would be at somebody’s house. And the families would gather from all over
the country, and the big centerpiece of that day was a wonderful meal; everybody would
bring their best dish.
But after the meal, there would be enough alcohol come out to float the Queen Mary,
and this thing would get pretty wild. And so, my parents had the habit of taking us
there; we’d have the meal, and then, they taught us how to work the table - say, “Hello!”
to our aunts, and uncles, and cousins, and before this thing got too wild, my parents
would grab us all, and we’d beat our retreat.
Well, one Saturday, my mom got involved in an evangelistic encounter with one of her
siblings and didn’t realize that another one of my uncles had gotten very drunk, and he
was saying sexually perverse things about ladies in the room. My mom realized that; she
grabbed my brother Mark, and she yanked us to the car. I remember it well. I don’t
think my feet touched the steps.
And when she had us in the car, before she drove away, she said, “I want to say
something to you about what just happened, and I don’t want you to ever forget it.” And,

I never have. She said these eloquent words, “There’s nothing that comes out of the
mouth of a drunk that wasn’t there in the first place.”
Hear this. That alcohol didn’t create that sexual perversion; that alcohol loosened the
man’s lips, and when his lips were loose, out came the heart. That man was actually
thinking those thoughts in his sobriety. The drunkenness loosened his lips, and out
came the heart. You wouldn’t make that man pure by removing alcohol because his
problem was not so much an alcohol problem, but a heart problem.
Imagine I’m holding a bottle of water. It’s got the lid off of it, and I shake it real hard,
and water comes out. Why did the water come out? Now you may say, “Well, the water
came out because the bottle was shaken,” but that’s not really true, because if the bottle
was filled with milk, you could shake it forever, and water wouldn’t come out of it. You
see, the only thing that comes out of the bottle when it is shaken is what was already in
there in the first place. That’s what Christ is talking about in this passage--that it is out
of the heart that the mouth speaks, and that my words are shaped by my heart. This is
what this means - word problems are always heart problems because our hearts form our
words.
Think about what James says in James 4; he asked this question: “What causes fights
and quarrels among us?” Now, he doesn’t say next, “Don’t they come from those people
that you live with?” You see, that’s what we do. We look outside of ourselves to explain
our anger. James says, “What causes fights and quarrels among us--don’t they come
from your desires that battle within you?” James isn’t saying it’s wrong to desire. He
doesn’t use the word ‘evil’ before the word ‘desire.’ But what he’s doing is he’s
connecting my angry communication to my desires.
Listen! Why do I speak unkindly to you? Because there’s a certain set of desires for
something that I want that have now taken control of my heart, and I’m angry that you’re
in the way of what I want. You see, desire for even a good thing becomes a bad thing
when that desire becomes a ruling thing. My words were never meant to be ruled, to be
controlled, by a desire for something in the creation. My words were only ever meant to
be controlled by God. And when desire for acceptance, or desire for possessions, or
desire for power, or desire for anything in the creation begins to rule my heart, I will
immediately have havoc in my world of words.
You see, it’s out of the heart that the mouth speaks. Romans 1:25 grabs it very
powerfully with these words: “We tend to exchange worship and service of the Creator
for worship and service of the creation.” You see, my problem with words is more than
tough situations. It’s more than difficult people; it’s more than an unpredictable
schedule. It’s more than all those difficulties of life in a fallen world. My problem with
words, get this, it’s liberating when you get a hold of this; my problem with words is a
heart problem. And when the wrong things rule my heart, my world of talk will be a
world of trouble.

Music: “Leaning On The Everlasting Arms” by Twila Paris
What a fellowship
What a joy divine
Leaning on the everlasting arms
What a blessedness
What a peace is mine
Leaning on the everlasting arms
Leaning, leaning
Safe and secure from all alarm
Leaning (leaning on Jesus)
Leaning (leaning on Jesus)
Leaning on the everlasting arms
Leaning (leaning on Jesus)
Leaning (leaning on Jesus)
Safe and secure from all alarm
PDT: So be honest; where do you place responsibility for your talk--when you are angry,
when you are envious, when you gossip, when you use words as weapons instead of
instruments of help, where do you put responsibility? Do you blame your negative talk on
other people? Do you blame your negative talk on situations? Do you blame the traffic,
your schedule, finances, weather, your vehicle, your job, your family, your neighborhood?
Do you tend to blame others for your own communication - your wife, your husband, your
children, your parents, your boss, your coworkers, your friends, your neighbors? Do you
tend to blame God? “Oh, God, if only I had…” Do you tend to say, “If I only had more
money…If I only had a more understanding spouse…If I only had better education…If I
only had a more understanding pastor or church…If I only had more obedient
children…If I only had more loving, and supportive, and extended family…If I only had
more caring friends, better neighbors, a more reasonable boss”?
Remember, the Bible clearly says that your words are not controlled by what is outside of
you, but by what is inside of you. Go back to Luke 6, verse 43 to 45. Jesus gives a
wonderful, physical example. He says, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree
bear good fruit. You can’t pick figs from thorn bushes.”
Think about this. What’s the best way to recognize an apple tree? Well, you recognize it
by apples. But you instinctively know that that tree is ‘apple-istic’ all the way down to its
roots. If it didn’t have ‘apple-ism’ in its roots, it wouldn’t grow apple fruit. You will
never plant peach pits in the ground and get apples.
In the same way, there’s a spiritually organic connection between the thoughts and
desires of my heart and what is spoken in my words. Wrong desires, wrong thoughts, will

always lead to wrong in my communication in some way. And you see if that’s the case,
when you get bad fruit, you don’t solve the problem by just dealing with externals. If I
have a fruit tree, an apple tree, in my back yard, and it always grows inedible apples, and
I tell my wife that I’m going to fix it by climbing up in a ladder and cutting off all the old
apples and nailing apples, good apples, on to the tree, my wife would think I was crazy.
But think about this, there’s an awful lot we do in trying to change our communication
that is nothing more or less than apple-nailing, because it attempts to change
communication that does not get at the heart of the matter, and the heart of the problem
in talk is the heart.
When my heart is ruled by the wrong thing, when my heart thinks the wrong thing, when
my heart desires the wrong thing, when my heart is gripped by the wrong purposes and
motivations, I will not speak in a God-honoring, people-benefiting way. See, change
can’t just be at the level of fruit; change has to be at the level of roots as well. That’s
why Jesus Christ came to give us the possibility of that kind of change.
(Music Interlude)
PDT: So are you ready? Are you ready to quit looking outside? Are you ready to quit
blaming other people for the fruit of your own talk? Are you ready to say, “My problem
with my talk is me”? Are you ready to humbly recognize those desires that begin to take
control of your heart, and in so doing, shape your words?
Are you ready to say that often you forget God’s purpose when you speak because your
heart is so hooked by your own purpose? Just like--my heart was hooked by the desire
for the respect of that man. Are you ready to say to God, “Lord, won’t you give me Your
grace and pry open my fingers so that I would be willing to let go of what I want and to
begin to get excited about what You want”?
Remember, the one thing you cannot change in your life is your own heart. That’s
exactly why the promise of the cross is so exciting. The bright promise of the cross is a
new heart, and in that promise is the promise of real and lasting change. What is that
new heart about? It’s a heart of stone being taken out and a heart of flesh being given.
A heart of stone can’t be molded; a heart of flesh can be molded, the promises that, in
Christ, I find the ability to change, to really change. How about reaching out for real
change? How about quit looking outside of yourself? How about celebrating the change
that Jesus Christ can bring into your life when you say, “It’s me; it’s me; it’s me”?
KC: Paul Tripp and the power of words from the series, “What About Your Talk?” Be
sure to tune in tomorrow for more from this series. Today, Paul provided some thoughts
about the change needed in our own lives, as well as the lives of others.
If you would like to hear these words again, or would like to share them with friends, you
can order the CD’s online as well as other helpful resources. That’s at

paultrippministries.org. While you’re there, check out War of Words. In this book, Paul
Tripp examines the power of God-honoring speech. That’s War of Words, available at our
website, paultrippministries.org, all one word, paultripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P,
paultrippministries.org.
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for more information. Next time, Paul digs deeper into the power of words from the new
series, “What About Your Talk?” For Paul Tripp and all of us at Paul Tripp Ministries,
I’m Kate Crowley, reminding you that, in Jesus Christ, there really is help, right here,
right now.
© 2006 Paul Tripp Ministries
www.paultripp.com