Wholesome Speech - Speak Sound Words That Cannot Be Condemned - Justin Wadel

One of the most sobering realities is that someday the end of time will come, and there will be a judgment day. And Jesus has not only warned us that we will be judged by our lives here on the earth, but He has actually also told us some very specific things that we will be judged on. And one of those things is our words.

Matthew 12:33-37, "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad. For a tree is known by its fruit. Brute of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things?" This is a discussion that Jesus was having with the Pharisees. I'm not calling anyone here a brute of vipers.

"For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment." And an idle word is basically any careless or inactive or unprofitable word.

Very sobering. So to be more specific on the word idle and what Jesus is referring to there in Matthew, I have a thought that's taken out of the early Christian commentary on Matthew. And this is actually a quote by John Chrysostom.

Chrysostom says, "A word is idle when it is not according to the facts. It is idle when it is false or carries an unjust accusation. It also means that which is vain, for instance, provoking inordinate laughter, or what is filthy or immodest or coarse, words that are vainly imagined and falsely uttered.

For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." So Jesus is actually helping us be prepared for the final judgment by telling us ahead of time that our words will either justify us or condemn us.

The choice is ours.

Words matter.

The title of the sermon is Wholesome Speech. Speak sound words that cannot be condemned. And I take that from Titus 2:7-8, "And all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works, and doctrines showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed having nothing of you to say of you."

Sound speech that cannot be condemned, that when we get to the end of time and on Judgment Day, that there will be no condemnation of our words.

I want this message to encourage all of us to choose our words carefully and to recognize the power of the spoken word.

Stephen Talbot had this quote, "The flood of careless, unconsidered, cheap words is the greatest enemy of the profound word."

Psalm 18:15 out of the Septuagint, and I will be reading all of my Old Testament verses this morning, will be out of the Septuagint. "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always pleasing before you, O Lord, my helper and my redeemer." I know there was a time in my life when I added this to my prayer every morning, and I was thinking about it last week. I think I got out of that habit. Very good prayer to pray every morning that the words that come out of our mouth and the meditations of our heart would be pleasing to God. Above all, I'm going to say, if you forget everything else about this sermon, let's remember that after everything is said and done, we want our words and our thoughts to be pleasing to God.

James 3, we can't talk about words without going to James 3. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time in James because Connor just went through James and did very well with that. Let's go ahead and read through the third chapter. "My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.

Indeed, we put bits in horses' mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships. Although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires.

Even so, the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire by hell."

That's disturbing words.

"For every beast, every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison.

With it, we bless our God and Father, and with it, we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.

Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus, no spring yields both salt water and fresh. Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom.

But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and of good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.

Now, the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." I have three observations I would like to make out of this chapter very quickly. Number one, regardless of the fact that James warns against having too many teachers, it seems like almost everyone these days wants to be a teacher of some sort.

We have thousands of blogs and thousands of YouTube channels and all kinds of social media where people are given a platform to teach and to speak their minds on any given subject, whether they're an authority on that subject or not.

And we have all these opinions and all these causes and all these words. It's incredible. I think if James was around today, he would be very shocked.

And here James is telling us that a teacher will receive a stricter condemnation, a stricter judgment. Second observation, learning to control our words leads to perfection. Do you believe that?

We need to learn when to speak and when not to speak. And we need to learn to control the words that we do speak.

And when we learn this, according to James, we will then be able to control the whole body. That's powerful. I don't quite understand that.

How many of us here are guilty of using this excuse? I didn't mean what I just said.

Really? You know, when we say that, when we use this excuse, when we say something and then we say, "Well, I didn't really mean what I said," we're basically telling everyone that we talk without thinking. The third takeaway from this passage in James is that our speech is the first and probably the best indicator of the state of our heart.

Is there pride in my heart? It'll come out in my words. Is there bitterness in my heart? It'll come out in my words.

Is there envy or anger in my heart? Words will reveal that sooner or later. Just stop and listen to somebody speak. This is why, and we'll get into this a little more later, this is why we should constantly be guarding our hearts.

Because Jesus said, "It's out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. What's inside there will come out." Wisdom of Sirach, chapter 20, verses 5 through 8, "There is a man who is silent but is found to be wise. And there is a man who is hateful because he talks too much.

There is a man who is silent because he has no answer. And there is a man who is silent because he knows when to speak.

A wise man will keep silent until it is the right time to speak. But an arrogant and undiscerning man will speak out of turn. The man who talks too much will be detested, and the man who stands on his rights will be hated."

Probably one of the most difficult disciplines for most of us is learning when to keep silent. Ambrose of Milan said this, "Now what ought we to learn before everything else but to be silent, that we may be able to speak? Lest my voice should condemn me before that of another equip me. It is written, 'By thy words thou shalt be condemned.'" John Chrysostom said, "Let us always guard our tongue, not that it should always be silent, but that it should speak at the proper time." And I found a Spanish proverb, I don't know where exactly this came from. It says, "Don't speak unless you can improve on the silence."

So how much do we speak? How many words do we say? I'm going to share a little article that I found. And it's a little bit humorous, but it has some truth in it. This person writes, "While driving a car filled with teenagers," I have nothing against teenagers, all right? I'm going to say this upfront.

All right? Nothing at all. This thing of speaking in words is probably more of a problem with adults than it is with teenagers. So this is not a slam on teenagers.

"While driving a car filled with teenagers and for reasons that are obvious to any parent, a question entered my word-weary mind. I wonder how many words the average person speaks in an entire lifetime.

After a little research, it was revealed that in 1984, British writer, actor, broadcaster, self-professed word person and scrabble fanatic, Giles Brandreth, came up with one estimate: 860,341,500 words spoken in a lifetime.

Brandreth was so certain that his estimate was correct that he included it as the subtitle for his book, The Joy of Lex: How to Have Fun with 860,341,500 Words."

So 860.3 million words certainly sounds like a lot. However, getting our heads around that number requires some perspective. So here goes.

In one lifetime, if Brandreth is correct, the average person speaks the equivalent of the entire text of the complete 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary more than 14.5 times.

Put another way, the average person speaks the equivalent of the entire 32-volume Encyclopedia Britannica 19 and a half times.

Or put yet another way, the average person speaks the equivalent of the King James Bible, Old and New Testament, more than 1,110 times in a lifetime.

Now, that's a lot of talking. But imagine what the number would be if we remain teenagers forever. We live in an age where this thing of speaking your mind is considered a virtue and often seen as a sign of good leadership. But is this trait something the Bible commends? Should Christians be known for speaking their mind? The story is told of a hot-headed woman who told John Wesley, "My talent is to speak my mind." Mr. Wesley replied, "Woman, God wouldn't care a bit if you would bury that talent." But isn't that true that we can get into this thing where we feel like we have this gift of speaking our mind?

Well, to answer this question of whether or not this is right or not, let's look at the kind of speech that scripture does commend. And I want to say before I get into this that I do believe our heart plays a huge role in the way that we speak.

Jesus, I think, was very clear on that. And that's all through the Old and New Testament that it comes out of our heart. I don't think you can separate this. So when we're talking about words, we're talking about heart. When we talk about our hearts, we're talking about our words. We can't separate our minds and our thoughts from the tongue. It's just very connected.

But this morning, I'm going to be looking more at words and our speech. Luke 6:45 says, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good." Okay? Very clear, very simple. And an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.

All right. The Bible commends honest or truthful speech. Psalm 34:14, "Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit or lies or dishonesty."

Very, very crucial. And then the prophet Zechariah instructed God's people in Zechariah 8:16 and 17, "These are the things you shall do. Speak the truth, each man to his neighbor, and judge with peaceful judgment in your gates.

And let none of you plan evil in his heart against his neighbor, and do not love a false oath. For all these things I hate," says the Lord Almighty. Okay? Old Covenant. Paul commands the New Covenant people of Ephesus.

Ephesians 4:25, "Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another." This truth was from creation to now. God hates lying. Let's be careful about how many commitments and how many promises we make. Because by not keeping those promises or commitments, we are actually—it's a form of lying. It's a form of dishonesty.

Lying is a sin, the product of a fallen nature. Lying is the work of the enemy. So truthful speech is the sign of a redeemed heart. The Bible commends truthful speech for rebuke. In the scriptures, kindness, respect, and good manners are not simply nice things for certain people, but are actually considered Christian virtues. 1 Peter 3:15, "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." Then Peter also reminds us to treat every single human being with dignity. 1 Peter 2:17, "Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king."

I can almost guarantee you that if we would be okay with speaking our minds, that that would not produce this kind of honor and respect, especially for our government. Honor all people. That includes our words that we say about all people. In the pastoral epistles, you will notice that one of the cornerstone characteristics of qualified church leaders is gentleness. And I'm not going to read those verses. They're in Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3. And gentleness is most noticeable in our speech.

The way that we talk to people, the way that we interact, the way that we communicate, does that communicate gentleness? The Bible commends wise and informed speech. The way we speak is an oft-repeated theme in scripture. We already read from James where we see that words have power. Words matter. Words can either be life-giving or life-crushing.

Proverbs affirms the value of applying just the right word in the right moment. Proverbs 25:13, "As a golden apple and a small necklace of sardius stone, thus it is to speak a wise word or a word that fits."

It fits. We get into those opportunities where we can speak a word that fits. But if we're not going to speak a word that fits, it's better not to say it. James and Proverbs rebukes those who speak before thinking.

James 1:19, "So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." A lot could be said about that. Proverbs 17:29 and 30, "He who refrains from uttering a harsh word is intelligent.

And a long-suffering man has discernment. Wisdom shall be imputed to a man without understanding who asks for wisdom. And anyone who holds his peace will seem to have discernment."

Dorothy Neville, "The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

The Bible commends the wisdom of not sharing everything with everyone all the time. Proverbs tells us that trustworthy people keep confidential information confidential, and it is a sign of low character to reveal secrets. Proverbs 11:11, "A double-tongued man reveals deliberations hurting counsel, but a man faithful in spirit conceals matters."

This is a virtue to learn.

Later, Proverbs extols the astute or prudent man. He calls him a prudent man who knows to keep information to himself and how to be discerning and rebukes the man who speaks hastily and shares openly everything he hears. Proverbs 12:18 to 21, "A man without discernment immediately proclaims his wrath, but an astute man hides his own dishonor.

A righteous man declares his honesty openly, but the witness of the unrighteous is deceitful. There are those who wound with a sword as they speak, but the tongues of the wise heal.

Truthful lips establish a testimony, but a hasty witness has an unrighteous tongue." So sharing everything all the time to everyone who listens is not a sign of authenticity, but a sign of foolishness.

The Bible commends humility in our speech as a sign of grace. Again, back to the heart. What is in the heart is going to come out. James 4:6, "But he gives more grace. Therefore, he says, 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'" And this maxim is mentioned three times, at least three times in scriptures, in Proverbs, in James, in 1 Peter.

What does this have to do with our speech?

It tells us that graceful, measured, civil speech is a sign of God's grace in our lives. And proud, boastful speech is a sign of God's resistance.

Colossians 4:6, "Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one."

I started to look up in the New Testament where it talks about boastful people. And it didn't take me long at all to find out that that is not a good camp to be in. It's included in all those long lists, like in Jude. And I think Peter mentions them in different places where it's talking about how people will be in the last times. And it's in a list of these really horrible sins. And right in there, it says, "Boastful."

Always in the context of wickedness in the last days, or almost always. So we definitely don't want to find ourselves there.

Humility means speaking with recognition of our own humanity. It means resisting the urge to speak out of turn. It means that we have the self-awareness to know if we are the right person to speak on a particular issue at a particular time.

The Bible commends speech that edifies. And we already heard about this this morning. Kevin talked about that a little bit.

Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says that Christians can either speak words that destroy or words that build. Words that are given with a desire to build up the body of Christ or words that are wielded as carnal weapons of destruction.

That's how lethal words can be. That they can actually bring life or they can cause death. That's how crucial our words are. Ephesians 4:29 to 32, "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers."

And if we just followed that one verse right there, we'd probably be good to go. I don't think we would need any of these other verses.

No corrupt word. Only what is good for necessary edification. Edification is building up. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.

And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

So is speaking your mind a Christian virtue? Not if speaking your mind implies unfiltered, uninformed, and unbridled foolish talk that hurts and destroys. Let's pray for Holy Spirit power to seek after God in the way we use the gift of speech. And pray for repentance when our tongues reveal as yet unsanctified parts of our hearts.

The time to prepare for Judgment Day is now.

The end. Anybody have any thoughts? Anything they want to add?

I want to say thank you. I really appreciate your message.

I like the way that you were—it kind of hit me about idle words and the way that you tied it into judgment. And it makes me want to be much more careful about how often I speak. And also, it's somewhat of a mystery that verse that you talked about how we can—what was it? We can control our tongue.

We can control our bodies. We can control our whole body. And I want to understand that because I would love to be able to control my whole body. And I think I just need to speak less. And maybe if a higher percentage of the words that we speak are prayer versus conversation, then that might be a part of our words helping us control our whole body. It's just a thought that I have that I don't know that's true. So when James compares the tongue to a rudder of a ship, then I think of the tongue actually guiding our bodies. And it's a little bit hard to picture that. But that actually the words we speak take us in one direction or the other.

And not only that, they influence the people around us. I think that's probably the most sobering part of this sermon is to think about how words influence those around us. But they influence our own hearts. They influence our own lives. And they set us on a course, according to James.

That's one thing I appreciate about your message is that not just focusing on not speaking so much. And I think Jason does have a point. And the more words you—the more things you say, the more potential you have to say idle things. But also you focus on what it said in Proverbs that that can bring healing as well.

And with someone like myself who I tend to speak more, it's encouragement for me that I can—as my personality, I can speak things that are good. I've known several people in my life that were known as being very quiet.

But when they speak, there was a lot of times—they weren't a mean person, but it seemed like because they did compliment people or say things that brought healing, the times that they would be a little critical or something, it seemed like that was a little bit out of bounds. And so just because you don't say a lot, you can also have the tendency when you do speak to sound critical. Even though I probably would have said just as critical as they were, I just was able to dilute that with a lot more filler. So it's just—but that's also—like your honesty. That's also a point that I think we need to remember. And like Jason said, you talk so much.

But there's also a flip side to that as well. It's like I think you brought out well in your message. Yeah. Thank you.

I really appreciate the emphasis on making sure that our hearts are full of the right thing. Because like Zach said, for some of us, it's going to come out more than that. But making sure that our hearts are full of the right things so that it comes out is edifying, is building up, is creating an atmosphere of peace rather than competition or strength.

I do have a question on idle words. I think that would be something I'd like to talk more about later. What is idle words? I mean, it's pretty serious. Yeah. It really seems to give the idea of empty. I'm not a Greek scholar, but empty comes out pretty strong that it just—these empty words that have no life, they have no—there's nothing about them that's actually doing good of any way for anyone.

And Jesus is very strict about the empty words, the words that it does actually motivate me to want to control what I say because the empty words have no value at all. But yeah, I feel the same way you do. I don't have a really good—I really appreciate your message, brother.

Words can get us in trouble. So I guess one example I was thinking of myself where I could have gotten myself in trouble. We were living in town, and we had these two fellas that lived right back behind along the alleyway, right by the garage.

And they asked permission to park their car on my property right by my garage. So they were comfortable playing loud music. I really love hearing them. They're my dearest desired neighbors. They were back in right up by my garage.

And one time I noticed that my side window was broken right where the bumper of the car would have been. And I was thinking, "My neighbor backed into my garage." I mean, I was in the garage. All of a sudden, I heard loud music coming down the alleyway. The car backed in and crashed right into my garage. The whole garage shook.

And I was already kind of feeling, I guess, my patience went up to being kind of like a piece of paper. So they had rough fellas smoking loud music, making trash on my property.

Like I said, I would have followed my emotions. I would have probably gone out and talked to them. They would probably have a quick test. They're not going to test them or anything like that. But so quickly, in the middle of a time when your emotions are up, words can get us in trouble so quickly. The way I fixed the problem that I went to them later, after my emotions died down a bit, was blaming on what happened when I was in the garage. I put about six bucks in the trunk for some things that I wanted to back up that—the bumper. Yeah. So then I think they understood that. Also, in the midst of his emotions, he promised Brother Philip's wife.

Anything up to half of my kingdom. Yeah. And I think in the midst of that, he talked about this as well. So thank you for the words. It was a blessing.

I think idle words can be just too many words for good things. And if you ever—I mean, I've done it myself, and I've been around other people where they start out good, and then they just keep talking forever, and you're so bored, you can't wait to get out of there. That's just terrible. So that's idle words. That you lose the quality of your words when you say too many.

That could be part of it.

Thank you, Jesse. I think we all were very blessed by the message. I think very timely. I really like a Spanish proverb. I never heard that one before.

Whether what we say is going to improve the silence. I was wondering if anyone would comment at the end of your sermon without all the afraid. But yeah, that'll be a thought to remember. Thank you very much.

Talking about words and another little quote I just ran across was the idea of committing too much or not committing enough. And a lot of people say the hardest thing to do is learn to say no. But the recent quote I ran across is, "Every time you say yes or you commit to something, you're saying no to something else." And it's terrible what you say yes to. And I think that's important. That's a long-visible commitment and honesty and integrity and all that.

Yeah. Very good. All right. Well, let's speak words that edify and encourage and build up this week. So why don't we all stand for prayer, and then we can have a song?

Father, I do pray that the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts would be acceptable to You in this coming week. That we would be careful about the words we say and that we would be mindful to speak only that that is truthful and that is pure and lovely and of good report and honest.

I just pray that You would help us with this and help us to remember that someday we will be judged by our words. And I pray that we would guard our hearts and that we would be people who are known that speak words that matter, words that give life. Just bless each one that's here today and bless the remainder of our day. In Jesus' name, amen.