Christian teaching

We are bringing our series on righteous speech to a close today. We’ve been looking at this topic because . . .

Our words get us into trouble

James 3:2 says, “For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect person . . ..”  James teaches us that in terms of righteousness, the hardest of all things is our speech. It’s a struggle for all of us.

It’s not that we always say the wrong thing. We usually say what is right. But we still mess up. So we are saying good things some times, but also bad things some times; we are doing both.

It’s like what James 3:9-10 says, – “With our tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” Right? During the church service we praise God and then on the way home when someone cuts us off, we curse them.  James goes on, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My sisters and brothers, these things ought not to be so.”

A pointed example of this struggle comes from the life of Peter:

In Matthew 16:16-17, when Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was, “Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’” Peter used his mouth to speak out words that came from God. 

In Matthew 16:22-23, just a few moments later, when Jesus spoke of the cross it says, “Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.’” Peter used his mouth to speak out words that came from Satan.

In just a few moments he went from allowing God to speak through him and being commended by Jesus to having Satan speak through him and being rebuked by Jesus.

We often are the same way. We say good things but also unrighteous things. God speaks through us, but also we allow Satan to speak through us. When we do the latter we have to recognize that . . .

We sin through our speech

This is not a trifling thing. We dishonor God with our words and we hurt and wound others with our words.

And as Jesus says in Matthew 12:36-37 – “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” If even our careless words will be judged, then all of our words will be judged. As one of you commented when looked at these verses before – “We are all in trouble!” 

So in this series, we’ve been looking at . . .

What should we do?

I’ve given you three guidelines, so far:
1) Don’t talk a lot. Proverbs 10:19 says, “when words are many transgression is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in speech.”
2) Be slow to speak. James 1:19 says, “let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak.” Think carefully before you speak; be thoughtful.
3) We need to learn what righteous speech is and then guard our mouths to make sure that when we do speak, we speak words of righteousness. Proverbs 13:3 says, “Those who guard their mouths preserve their lives.”

So to this end, we have looked at different aspects of righteous speech:

• Honoring God’s name
• Speaking the truth
• Not swearing promises but simply keeping our word
• Not boasting
• Using words that build others up rather than words that tear down

And we could add many more. For instance:

• How we should be a people filled with thanksgiving instead of complaining – Philippians 2:14; 4:4.
• How we should cease sexually immoral language – Ephesians 5:3.

And on and on . . . And we learn about these so that we can guard our mouths and learn to speak righteously.

Today we look at a fourth guideline and the most important one. Yes, you need to know what righteous speech is. But that is useless if you don’t get to the root of the problem of your unrighteous speech . . .

You have to deal with your heart

This brings us to Matthew 12:34-35 – “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.”

Jesus gives us this principle: Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So then, evil words come from an evil treasure; an evil heart. But also, good words come from an good treasure; good heart.

There is this unbreakable connection between what is within you, in your heart, and what comes out of your mouth.

So, for instance, do you have:
– boastful words? Look for pride in your heart.
– critical speech? Most likely you have bitterness or discontentment.
– abusive speech? Perhaps you have anger or woundedness in your heart.

And so again – if we want to have righteous speech we have to deal with our hearts – our unrighteous, evil hearts. It like mowing weeds and thinking this will kill them, when the roots are still there and so they keep growing. We can try to guard our mouths all we want to but without this we will fail. We have to go to the root.

There are two ways we can act to change our hearts:

1. Ask God to renew your heart: Ask the Spirit to come into your life and give you a new heart, with new desires and attitudes.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 talks about this. The Lord says – “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

God can change your heart, just as when you were born again and given a new heart, so God can continue to come into your heart and transform you and make you new in righteousness. This is the work of the Spirit of God, who works in our hearts to bear good fruit. As Paul says in Galatians 5:22 – “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.”

Do you have pride, bitterness or anger in your heart? God can deal with these, or whatever it is – if we let him. And for sure it often means we have work to do, for instance with bitterness choosing to forgive. But the point here is that God can transform your heart if you will let him.

God can bring healing and help, which will then show up in our words. As Jesus said, “The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good” – Matthew 12:35. Ask God to help you and he will do a work in your heart.

2. Nurture your heart in righteousness: Be careful what you receive into yourself through your eyes and ears, from the world and it influences. And then be careful what you focus on, meditate on and give attention to in your heart. You are what you ruminate on. This becomes a part of you and shapes your heart.

What you put in is what comes out and if you put garbage in, you will get garbage out!

So receive into your heart the things of God, that will support and work with God as he seeks to renew your heart. As Paul says in Philippians 4:8 – “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Ruminate on these things.

And as we cultivate and focus on these good things of God, this will affect the treasure that is in our hearts. And this will show up in our good words that flow out of the abundance of our hearts.

So here are our four guidelines for righteous speech:
1. Don’t talk a lot
2. Be slow to speak
3. Guard your mouth
4. Deal with your heart

William Higgins