What Your Words Are Doing (Wisdom, Week 2)

Scriptures: Proverbs 12:17–19; 15:1–4; 18:21 | Matthew 12:33–37

Proverbs is relentless about speech — gossip, flattery, angry words, lies, and also the life-giving power of honest, kind conversation. Jesus says our words reveal the state of our hearts, and the same Jesus who will judge our careless words has already spoken the words that forgive them.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In Matthew 28, Jesus said, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He calls you to be that disciple. To hear his word, to receive his promises, to repent, to believe. That Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And that by believing you have life in his name. Now here are the good news of Jesus for you. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. There are certain moments in life where getting the right words matter. We all know this is true. A young man spends days, weeks rehearsing for what he's going to say before proposing in marriage to his bride to be. He knows that this is not the moment for, well, I guess it's about time we should just probably get married. And no, he carefully chooses those words because he knows. He knows that words matter, he knows that this moment matters, and the words in this moment matter. Parents, they think carefully about the words that they use when talking with their children after they come home and they've had a difficult day. The doctor chooses those words carefully as they walk into that room. A friend struggles to find the right words to say as they're next to the bedside at the hospital or as they're at a funeral home with friends. We understand instinctively that the words we say, the words we use, they matter. And researchers estimate that the average person, the average person, uh so if you're introverted or extroverted, you might have to, you know, decide how close you are to this average. The average person speaks around 16,000 words every day. Just for reference, about a 20-minute conversation with another person is somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 words. So it's really not that difficult to get to about 16,000 words a day. If you add that up, that's about 100,000, more than 100,000 words in a week, or 5 million in a year. That's a lot of words. And yet most of the words are spoken without much thought at all. The words that we carefully prepare for for the wedding speech or the important presentation, that's the ones, those are the words that receive all of our attention. But what about the other words? The words that are spoken around the dinner table? What about the words that are spoken during an argument? What about the words that come out in a text message as we're frustrated? What about the passing comment that is made to a spouse or a child, to a coworker, to a friend? Again, we tend to focus on and think about those important words. We'll call them important words. But what about those ordinary ones? Those ones are often the ones that have the greatest impact, the greatest impact of the people around us. The book of Proverbs, these are selected verses for today. The book of Proverbs, though, has a great deal to say about the words that we use. And God in Proverbs makes something very clear that words are never just that. They're never just words. They have power, they influence, they shape relationships, they heal, they bring comfort and peace. Yes, they wound. We're going to take a look at some of those verses, and we're just going to look at a verse from each of those different sections. So we're going to start with the first one, Proverbs 12, verse 18. Says, there's one whose rash words are like sword thrusts. Another translation has it as reckless words. Reckless words are like sword thrusts. A wife has this great idea, and she's been thinking about it for quite some time now, maybe a few weeks. She spent time considering it. She's imagining what it could become, and she finally brings herself to the courage to share it with her husband, and she begins explaining it, and she talks about all the possibilities related to it. And then she, before she can even get to the place where she's finishing the conversation and sharing all the details about it, her husband responds and he says, Yeah, that sounds great, but that's never gonna work. He doesn't mean to be cruel in that moment. In fact, he might even think that he's being practical. There's no point in going down this road if we know that there's not really a possibility for it. And so 30 seconds goes by and he's already forgotten about it. He's forgotten about the conversation, but she hasn't. What she remembers is a quick comment. What he remembers is a quick comment, she remembers it as rejection. What he thought was an evaluation of an idea that maybe wasn't quite what she had all thought it out to be. She receives it as rejection of her, not just the idea. And so now, now she's less likely to be vulnerable in the future. She's less likely to share about her dreams and her visions and her ideas. This is what Proverbs mean when it says that words, harsh words, or reckless words, are like a sword. They're like sword thrusts. They dive in. It's not some small thing, but it impacts us for years and years and years. And we all know what that feels like. Hurtful words that happened in a moment's notice. And we still bear those scars today. We remember, we can imagine and picture ourselves in that conversation with that person who said that thing to us, and it still feels like the knife being driven in. We remember what their face looks like. We remember who it was. We remember all the details about that day. Harsh words, reckless words, are like sword thrusts. Proverbs 15, 1 says, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. A harsh word stirs up anger. A husband brings up a concern about the family's finances. Maybe spending has gotten a little bit out of control, and there's difficult decisions that need to be made, and he raises the issue because he wants to work through it together. And his wife responds immediately. You always think like this. You always think about the crisis moments. And right there, the conversation begins to change and shift immediately. And so the issue is no longer about the money, it's no longer about the budget. Now it's about hurt feelings and defensiveness, and it's about proving who is right. And so what happens? You've seen this play out, the voices intensify, frustration grows, and what should have been a discussion is now conflict. And we've all experienced something similar to that, maybe even that exact same conversation before, where a harsh word quickly moves, quickly moves from a conversation to conflict. At home, at work, dealing with somebody in customer service. Notice that Proverbs doesn't say that a soft answer should avoid the truth. That somehow we should avoid the difficult conversations. It doesn't say that, it doesn't imply it, it doesn't infar it in any way. No, we it's okay for us to disagree. It's appropriate. We need to talk about difficult issues. The difference is that one invites conversation. That soft answer says, help me understand. Help me understand what's going on so I can make sense of this. So that you and I could be on the same page. But that harsh word, the harsh word that stirs up anger, says, you know what? Let me tell you, let me tell you how you're wrong. And everybody knows the difference. And you probably resonate a little bit of both. Proverbs 26 says, for lack of wood, the fire goes out, and where there's no whisper, quarreling ceases. This is this is gossip, gossip at its core. And we see it. We see it all over the place. Someone hears that a church member is struggling in their marriage. And it may be true, maybe not. But instead of speaking directly to the person or keeping the matter private, they tell a friend. Of course, they don't call it gossip. They say, I'm only sharing this because I'm concerned. I'm concerned about them. I'm concerned about their family. And so that friend tells another friend, and someone else fills in the details because we don't know all the details and details that we never are really quite sure if they're all entirely true. And soon a private conversation, a private struggle becomes very public, and people begin forming sides and forming opinions about a situation that they don't fully understand. And with that, just like that, relationships are damaged and trust is broken and doesn't take long. The amazing thing about gossip is how often it is disguised as something else. Gossip is often disguised as a concern, a worry for other people. Or even it's a prayer. Boy, you know, I'm praying that things work out for them. Yada, yada, yada, yada. Proverbs says that the whisper is adding, is adding to the fire. And so every time you retell that story, it just grows. It keeps it alive. And so the solution, everybody knows the solution. Solution's really simple. I didn't say it's easy, it's simple. Stop talking about it. Stop spreading. Refuse to be part of the conversation. Refuse to be part of the retelling of this story that really isn't about you and doesn't matter to you and shouldn't matter to you at all. Most conflicts survive when people uh when people keep feeding it, and so stop feeding it. Then you get Proverbs 18. It says, death and life. Death and life. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Two polar opposites, death and life. Think about how true this really is. A parent looks at you and says, I'm proud. I'm proud of you. If you've ever had that, you probably still can recall that memory and say, Wow, yeah, when I heard that, that was a big deal. Your spouse looks at you and says, I love you. A teacher says, You can do this. I believe in you. I know you can. A friend says, I know you're going through a hard time. Call me whenever, I'll be there for you. There's life. You can feel it. There's life when people use their words like that. It matters. And then there's the opposite, which is true. You get that criticism, especially the criticism from uh the wrong person or maybe the right person. The insult, a humiliating comment, a statement that's spoken in anger. These words linger. These words linger, and they we carry them. We carry them sometimes for a lifetime. All this is this point that Proverbs makes over and over again. These are just selected verses from Proverbs because it's all over Proverbs. But words matter. You know that old adage, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Everybody knows. That's a blatant lie. Words matter. There's life and there's death and the power of the tongue. And so if we know this to be true, if we know that words matter, then what's going on? Jesus tells us what's going on. In Matthew 12, Jesus says, out of the abundance of the heart, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So what comes out of our mouths is not an accident. It's not a slip-up, it's a symptom. The remark that you make as you're sitting in traffic, the deep, heavy sigh that you give to your spouse or your children, you know what that sounds like? Or maybe you do that to your parents. The silence, the silent treatment that we give. These are all indicators of something that's going on further deep inside of us. And that means that we can't just give an excuse. Okay? We can't just say that it just come up with an excuse like, ah, you know what, I didn't really mean it because according to Jesus, you did. You did mean it. Or you can't say, well, I'm just having a bad day, because according to Jesus, now the bad day, it might have created a condition that might have brought some of those things out, but guess what was deep down in there? That. Because it's a condition of the heart. Or you can't say, you know what, I'm basically a good person. I just have trouble with my tongue. According to Jesus, that sharp tongue, that's you. That's you. And then Jesus follows this up. He says, I tell you on the judgment day, people will give account for every careless word. Every careless word, every eye roll, every sigh that landed like a verdict, every joke that you made about someone else at their expense. James looks at all this and he concludes no human being can tame the tongue. By the way, that's not pessimism. That's what Jesus is talking about. This is a diagnosis. You can't fix the symptom without treating the disease. You can't clean up your speech with willpower and self-monitoring any more than you can cure a fever by standing in front of a fan. It doesn't work that way. And so the problem is not your mouth. That's what Jesus says here. The problem is further down, it's in your heart. John 1 tells us this. It says, In the beginning was the Word. What a great choice for John to begin his gospel with. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same God whose very speech brought the world into existence by saying, Let there be light, and there was light. He entered our world as a human being. He took on flesh, and the words he spoke, the words he spoke were unlike any other words spoken before or since. He spoke, and the blind eyes were opened. He spoke and the storms were ceased to a dull roar. And he did. He spoke to a woman that was caught in the most public shame of her life, and he said, Neither do I condemn you. Go, sin no more. He spoke to the thief on the cross next to him, and he said, Today you're going to be with me in paradise. See, those are not the words of a skilled communicator, taking the words of Proverbs and applying them. Those are the words of the one in whom all words, all the right words, find their origin and find their goal. He spoke perfectly. Every word was life-giving. Every word was true. Every word did exactly what he was intending it to do. Every word freed the people that he spoke to. And then he went to the cross. And on that cross, he bore the full weight, the full weight of every wounding word that you and I have ever spoken. Every careless word, every piece of gossip that we've transferred from one person to another, every cruel joke we've made about somebody else at their expense. Every time that we were silent when we know that we should have spoken up. Every reckless and rash statement that we said in anger, he carried all of it. And then there was a verdict spoken over him. And that verdict brought death. So that the verdict spoken over us could be the opposite. So the verdict spoken us over us could be life. And three days later he rose. And then get this. Now that also means he knows all the bad stuff, too. But he knows us by name. And he calls us by name. He speaks your name in baptism. He speaks your name and he speaks his name over you. And puts his name on your mouth and on your heart. Words do a lot. They matter. They can do good, they can do harm. Again, they can also bring healing and comfort and peace. Proverbs 12, the tongue of the wise brings healing. Think about that. You also have the power to bring healing with the words that you speak, because those words do matter. And there's someone in your life, no doubt, that needs to hear those kind of healing and comforting and peaceful words from you today. And so maybe you already have that person in mind. Write it down. And go and speak that word. Maybe it's to a spouse or to a child or a coworker or a friend. Somebody needs to hear. Somebody needs to hear from you. And maybe it's a child who's been working really hard and they need to hear, I'm proud of you. Or maybe it's to a coworker that is struggling right now and you see it and nobody else sees it, or maybe they see it, but they don't want to do anything about it. But you see it and you can say that you're there for them. Or maybe it's to your spouse and they need to hear, I love you. Or they need to hear, I'm sorry. Will you forgive me? By the way, don't do it in text. That's nonsense. Go to them. Call them. It's more difficult for sure. But words matter. And people need to hear these powerful life-giving words from you and me. In a few moments, we're gonna hear four words. Four words that are spoken over bread, and four words that are spoken over wine. This is my body. This is my blood. That's what Jesus says. Four words, just four words, that's all it is. But in those four words, the the crucified and risen Lord and Savior, He gives Himself to you. His body broken for your body, his blood shed for your sins, his life exchanged for your death. These are the most consequential words ever spoken at any table anywhere in the history of the world. And they are spoken over you, specifically by name. So while you and I, we've spoken words this week and in the past that we wish we could take back. While that's true, every careless word, every one, has already been paid. It's already been paid for. And now what Jesus speaks over you is not judgment, it is given for you, shed for you, that you are loved, that you are forgiven, that you are mine. You see, you and I, we know what those words sound like, and they are life-changing, they are life-giving. And so today, when you leave this table and you leave this place, go. But go with those words in your ears and on your hearts, and be prepared to give those words out because those words change lives, and those words are life-giving because they come from Jesus. Amen.