Who Are You? Your Words Tell!

Introduction

Well, I was going to preach tonight. But Ed did such a great job with the song service, there’s really nothing left to say. If you just apply the words of the song that we’ve sung, then we will have had a productive time together, and we could just go on home. But you know I’m going to preach, right? A few thoughts to further cement what we sung. I want to talk about an age-old problem. And that is, and I use a very strong term when I use the term divorce, divorcing behavior from faith. And as strange as it may sound, an age-old problem of divorcing faith from faith is an issue with which believers struggle. In other words, I am engaged in religious activity like this. I worship among the Lord’s people three times a week, but I may just walk out these doors and really give faith not another thought.

1. Behavior Matters

That’s actually divorcing faith from faith. Actually, this is just a springboard to a life of faith as we live by day and let the beauty of Jesus be seen in us. But we’ve all seen examples and been guilty at times in our own lives of not displaying behavior consistent with our profession of faith. Behavior matters. If we claim to be religious and do not bridle our tongues, I said it wasn’t in the lesson, and it really still isn’t. It’s not in the outline, but it just came to me, so I’m going to throw it in. If we do not control our bridle our tongues, then our religion is what? It is vain. Useless. James chapter 1 and verse 26. Your behavior matters. This is something you might notice the little apple there.

This graphic actually comes, I guess, from a teaching and school standpoint. And this other graphic does too, encouraging children to exercise certain qualities in their behavior. Those of you who are teachers have anything to do with our education system in this country might encourage this kind of thing in the children. In the classroom, if you’re a teacher, please, kids, exercise self-control, balance, calmness, determination, confidence, willpower. And so those might be helpful in the classroom, but we certainly want to add even more qualities of righteousness to that list as we talk about behavior matters. And I want to emphasize in this point that behavior matters in relationships. Probably heard the illustration before about the Christian who would attend all the services of the church and yet at the ball field would be totally out of control.

Yelling and screaming at coaches and umpires and other people looking at them like, what a poor advertisement for someone who is a Christian. I’m not so sure that husbands and wives should always go together to the grocery store. Obviously, Daniel doesn’t want to go. And the reason why I say that is I notice the behavior of people in grocery stores. Have you seen husband or wife get snippy with one another? What was it about? Organic costs more than regular beef. Let’s just get the regular beef. We’ve lived on it for 30 years. Why do we have to have this organic and grass-fed stuff? You know, and this costs $5. We can get the same thing for $3, you know. And I see people getting snippy and rolling the eyes, and I don’t know.

I’m just observing people’s behavior anymore at the grocery store. And so, how are we interacting in relationships? Conduct in the home matters. Or when you take home on the road. It matters. Attitudes. Attitudes toward each other. Body language. Don’t think. You know, body language doesn’t send a message. Respect. Yes, even our words. Even the treatment of our neighbor as we talk about relationships. Does your neighbor do something that annoys you? I want to tell you, I never really thought about this, but when you buy a house, you probably ought to look beyond just the dwelling you’re buying and see who your neighbor’s going to be. Just a thought. Just a thought. The house may be perfect, but you may be saddled with neighbors for a long time.

2. Words Matter

I just really rolled the dice with that when I moved here. Got the same neighbors on this side and on this side, and one beyond them, same neighbors for ten years. So in that circumstance, I am very thankful that I have good neighbors. Imagine if they were not. How would you treat them if they were not? Words matter. I wonder if this statistic is true. People sitting in pews like this are using more profanity than they ever have. I wonder about that. Do you know what I’m talking about? By the way, when I say profanity, I think you know what’s in that category, don’t you? More on that in a minute. I don’t even have to spell out the words or say the words, and I’m not going to.

You know what I’m talking about. I believe it may also be true that in the midst of moments of anger, that some who claim to be loyal to Christ will fire expletive after expletive after expletive. And again, that’s a general term that covers the whole category, and you know the kinds of things I’m talking about, because you’ve seen it if you’ve not done it yourself.

This bomb, that bomb, over and over again. Should that kind of thing ever characterize you? Or me. And I’ll just say some in this audience have been very careful monitoring your speech for many years, and in a moment of frustration and great difficulty and conflict, you would not resort to profanity. That may not be your weakness. But for other people, it can be among us. You know, your weakness could be sobriety, just a temptation to drink alcohol, or to watch something that you shouldn’t watch as a Christian. More on that in a moment. Whereas they have a struggle with the things that they say. I don’t believe every Christian struggle is identical. I believe we will struggle in some areas more than others, and it won’t necessarily be the same.

But I want to focus primarily tonight on the things that come out of our mouths, on the heels of a, well, I don’t even know how to characterize this. It’s enjoyable that the United States women won the World Cup for what? The third time in a row? That’s a historic and notable achievement, and we’re very patriotic, and we’re happy about that. And some of you even like soccer. And Brandy’s not here, so I can talk about her tonight as they’re taking kids to camp. If you’ve never watched her watch American Soccer, you need to see that. Okay. So she gets into it. And it’s like, I don’t know if that brandy. Okay. But I’ve been a little underwhelmed by some of the behavior of our stars.

And when one of them was given keys, or they all were given keys to the city of New York City, one of them made a somewhat nice speech that concluded then with a serious profane word at the end. Why? Why do people employ words? Why would Christians employ words like that? It’s despicable. Is it to sound tough and cool to get to get attention? What is it? Dr. Heider Zihit, scientist, author, speaker, contributor to Huffington Post said, words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. That’s a pretty strong statement. You know, I think words are pretty powerful because God used them to communicate his message for the rest of time. God used words. Words are powerful. He quoted someone, I thought they were original with him, but I actually saw these words attributed to someone else.

Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, and to humble. Those are all the H’s that relate to the use of words. Words are powerful. And we sang, yield not to temptation. I wonder if we actually equate the thoughts that we’re having, the circumstances that are unfolding with the words that are about to come out of our mouths, and that I might be tempted in that moment to just let fly. And when I do that, it’s not a small thing.

And in this graphic, it said, our mouths reveal our motives, and I’ll tell you even further what our mouths reveal, whether we are spiritual or carnal. It is one great indicator, as we try to be an example to others, according to 1 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 12, to start with the words that are coming out of our mouth. The nature of those words. Are they helpful? Are they conducive to good relationships? Or do they put up barriers? Do they press apart? Do they put up walls? Do they reflect a life and a heart devoted to God? Or a heart that is more in tune to the world. Who are you at your core? Five passages I want to share with you and then some observations.

3. Five Passages to Help Your Speech

Okay, this one. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 29. I’m assume a lot of you are familiar. This will fix almost everything. One passage that will fix almost everything if it is observed. This is the no rottenness zone. This is one major filter for speech. Let no zero. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth. You’re in control here. James says that clearly in James chapter 3. You’re in control of what comes out of your mouth. You can’t say about things that happen in words that you speak. The devil made me do it. You chose it. Those words just came out of my mouth recently. The devil made me do it, but it was Myra. It was Myra who caused me to put Micah and John in that situation where they were hit with ice balls.

I lured them. And as I was running for my life, I was saying, The devil made me do it. The devil made me do it. Myra made me do it.

Because you’ve never heard a preacher say the devil made me do it. But that was a joke, wasn’t it? I could have said no to her nefarious plan. But it would have avoided a lot of fun that was had at John and Micah’s. Of course, I almost got thrown in the water with my phone in my pocket. I want to thank them for restraining themselves and not ruining my iPhone. It’s a valuable way to communicate with somebody who lives a thousand miles away, and I didn’t want that to be destroyed. Okay. This verse right here, focus on it. Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth. What proceeds out of the mouth, this is what defiles the man, verse number two. Found in Matthew chapter 15.

And in that context, he’s not talking, he’s talking about the fact that it’s not about rules in regard to eating foods and what comes in, and that, oh, I’m going to be ceremonially defiled because I took something within my body. Paul would say food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6. He said, You need to be more focused, not on what you’re consuming, but what’s proceeding out of your mouth. A greater defilement results here. The mouth speaks out of that, which fills the heart, whatever that treasure might be, verse 35 of Matthew 12. And I say to you that every careless word that men shall speak. Careless, it just was just good in the moment. I threw it out there.

You’ll render account. God cares about our words. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned. And don’t think that a little religion makes up for it. In that context on the tongue in James chapter 3, from the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. That ought not to be.

Verses 3 through 5. Do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you as is proper among saints. And there must be no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks a proper employment of the tongue. For this you know with certainty that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of God, in the kingdom of Christ in God. You know, we might look at verses three and five and camp out there, oh, that behavior is really bad. But look at what is sandwiched in that Oreo. Look at the cream filling of these three verses, and it’s talking about an immorality equally serious, and that is just engaging in words of no profit.

4. Blasphemy and Profane Words

Silly talk, coarse jesting. Well, what constitutes that? The filthiness part of it I might see, but the silly talk or the coarse jesting. And so what we might learn here is that we need to hold our speech to the same standard to which we hold our bodies when it comes to immorality. And finally, put aside so many things in Colossians chapter 3. Put aside anger and wrath and malice, slander and abusive speech from your mouth. And he talks about immorality in verse 5 that needs to be put off as well. So, five passages that are going to help you in regard to your speech. And I want to make four observations about these passages, and how we’re going to make application. The first involves blasphemy. Blasphemy.

Using the name of the Lord. Any person of the Godhead in a flippant or casual way. To use the name of God as an adjective. So very disrespectful to who he is. An adjective. That is, it’s not even the main word. It’s a descriptive word of something. And to use that as an adjective for an expletive. Seriously. He deserves greater respect when his word, when his name, hallowed be his name. Jesus said in Matthew chapter six and verse nine. So when we talk about profane words, and I meant to do this before we got specifically to blasphemy. The discussion always comes up about.

And so what was profane many years ago may not be considered profane today as it becomes more commonplace in people’s use. And I do believe words are changing continually. They change by the moment, connotatively, what words mean changes. And I can give you an example of that. When I was in high school, just a few years ago. Four decades ago. My parents bought an ice cream place that served soft serve ice cream. And it was delicious. I grew up on Hot Fudge Sundays and Chili Dogs because I worked there. I was the only male that worked there. There were some benefits to that as well. I guess I got the job because I knew the owners. And I got to serve ice cream to people all summer.

The unfortunate thing about this establishment, it actually sent me to Florida College. It helped pay the bills so I could go to Florida College. Mom and Dad deserve props for that. And it was an ice cream place. Did I mention that? There was one problem. And that for years this place had been known as the Gala Dairy Bar. And so my classmates at high school simply called it the gay bar. And they made fun of me regularly because I worked at the gay bar instead of the gala dairy bar. There’s nothing wrong with the word gay la. It’s just fine. But it was about that time that gay didn’t mean just happy anymore. And so if you just throw out the word gay connotatively in people’s mind, in these times, 99 out of 100 people are going to think you’re talking about homosexual conduct.

Because words change with usage. I will acknowledge that. But you know, there’s some things that haven’t changed. You know, clothing styles change. And clothing styles do affect how we talk about modesty, for instance. What is modest.

So we end up talking about all the different styles of clothing that can be worn and whether or not those are modest. And so there’s, but you know what happens in regard to modesty? You still need the same parts of the body covered that you always needed to have covered to be modest. Those same private parts of the body. I’m going to come back to that thought in a second. But in regard to words, and I understand it. And a lot of times you can use bad speech, and a lot of people don’t think anything about it, but you know, when I just said profane words and profanity and expletives, you probably knew the category of words I was talking about. And you know what? There are people who aren’t Christians that still rate movies.

PG 13 and R, it’s not preachers rating those movies. On the basis of the words and the content in those movies. And they might be more likely to give it a stricter rating over words that are used. Vulgarities than they are sexual content. They may let some sexual content go through on a PG 13 that they would not let go through in regard to language. These are the world standards. And isn’t it interesting that I’ve been around all of these years, as you were acknowledging earlier by the Snicker. I’ve been around all of these years, and you know what? The list of profane words hasn’t changed. They’re still profane. I guess it’s possible somewhere down the road that a profane word isn’t profane anymore. But I’ll tell you, blasphemy is always the same.

And so I want to talk to you about that part of Ephesians 5 that addresses sexuality. God meant sexuality to be private between two people in marriage. And we don’t need to be talking about it. If those areas that I mentioned in regard to modesty, the ones that God wanted to be covered, we don’t need to be talking about those. And making jokes about those. That is immodest, about immodesty. Vulgarity, already mentioned that. Immoderacy. Things that simply aren’t modest. That is, they are excessive, extreme, exorbitant, going for the jugular, if you will.

5. An Environment Where Profanity Is Being Used

So some applications here. What about being in an environment where profanity is being used? I’m not around that very much. You might be. Sometimes on the golf course, people get paired with me. I feel sorry for them when it happens. I mean, because they a lot of times they don’t know that I don’t drink and that I’m a Christian, and worse yet, I’m a preacher. So I try to get that out of the way before they ask that question on about the eighth or ninth hole. What do you do? Brent and I just get to where we just tell people right at the beginning. You’re playing with a couple of preachers. Because if you don’t, the expletives start flying, and I have played with some people who absolutely don’t care.

I’ll tell them I’m a preacher, and it doesn’t affect them one bit. I guess profanity is so much a part of their lives that they’re going to let them fly no matter what. And it’s several have said, I’ve heard this phrase many times. Pardon my French. Look, it’s not your French I’m worried about, it’s your English. And you don’t answer to me. You don’t answer to me. You answer to God. When people are engaged in foul conversation, whether it’s involving a lot of vulgarities, should you just sit there and say nothing? Think about Ephesians 5. Do not be partakers with them, verse 7. For you were formerly darkness, but now your light in the Lord walk as children of light. Learn what is pleasing to the Lord, verse 10.

And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them. Give some thought to that. Especially should we expose the unfruitful deeds of darkness if Christians are engaging them. Yeah, I agree there’s tactful ways to do that. So why is it that people are engaged in profanity, as I suggested, probably more than they have been in the past. I don’t think you just wake up one day and say, Oh, I want to start experimenting with four-letter words, and the next time I get angry, I’m going to roll out 15. I don’t think it happens like that. I think it happens on the basis of what we’re watching and listening to on a regular basis. What kinds of thoughts? Philippians chapter 4 and verse 8.

6. Euphemisms and Anger

Things of virtue, things of praise, excellent things. Are those things occupying our thoughts? And maybe we have a problem with profanity because we’re exposing ourselves on a way too frequent basis with such vulgarities. Okay, you saw that euphemisms. This is always the rub. We talk about words. Yeah, but they’re not, they’re not actually profane. They’re derivatives of what is what is profane. Maybe you just change one letter, but it’s not the same word.

By the way, let me tell you how anger fits into all of this. You are more susceptible to sin with the tongue when you’re angry, because your spirit is already moving in a direction that is out of control. And so your tongue might generally follow along right behind it, especially if it has been trained by entertainment. That is illicit and unlawful. Okay, so be careful. Anger is only going to exacerbate the problem. Okay, but I’m going to restrain from the really bad words. And I’m going to just use initials, three in particular. Oh, do I even need to finish it? I don’t know where that. When I first started seeing that, I had no idea what that meant. What do those three initials mean? But if you use the initials, it’s not as bad as actually saying it.

Or if you change one letter in the word, it’s not the really bad word. And a lot of people use it. It’s one letter off. What do people think in their minds when you use that word? Are they thinking, oh, that’s not the bad word, or is it? It caused their mind to go to what the bad word is. That’s really close to the bad word. How hard is it to use unquestionably clear speech? Do you need an exclamatory word when you nearly rip your little pinky toe off as you walk around the house? I mean, we’ve all done that, right? You cut the corner too sharp, and I’m telling you nearly rip that little toe off. Or that mishap happens when you have a heavy tool in your hand.

Or in my case, I’ve hit myself with a golf club before several times. I mean, it’s not like I was going, oh, Tony, and hitting myself like this. It happens by accident. But that’s metal against flesh and bone, and it doesn’t feel good. And so when something like that happens, you start to boil on the inside because it hurts. And it’s natural, almost natural to want to say something, to blurt out something. What’s your blurred out word? Or when things go really frustrating like they do for me on the golf course. I’m known for saying this is pretty benign. Tony. I growl at myself, Tony. Or I’ll say, man. Man. You can tell me what later whether you think I ought to use that one. Man.

Conclusion

Or foot, old foot, somebody might say. I don’t know what word do you use. Make sure if you have a go-to word that you absolutely need to exclaim when things go awry, that it is not impure. Everyday Christianity. You know, a lot of what we talk about here has to do with just that. What are we going to do when we go out there? Tony, have you made all the decisions for us tonight on the kinds of words we should use or shouldn’t use? Again, you’re going to answer to God. Examine everything carefully. Hold fast to that which is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us take care of what God has given us to use. We’ve talked about being stewards in our Sunday morning class. Take care of what God has given us to be responsible for in our speech, our conduct, our relationship. Let us make sure our Christianity is every day and that we’re looking carefully at our behavior and exercising control. Control in our speech. Apparently, this has always been a problem for people. There’s so much said about it in the Proverbs of the New Testament, which is the book of James, and certainly as we’ve been seeing in the Proverbs, there’s a lot said about death and life are in the power of the tongue. And I just want to tell you this. Everyday Christianity, molding every thought and every action and all of our behavior after the will of the Lord is worth the effort.

It is not only worth the effort, it will pay dividends. Not only in your life, and I love the word dividends because you would love it if all of your stocks paid big dividends. The greatest dividends are paid in ordering your life after the will of God and helping others to do the same. Is there someone in this audience tonight who needs to make that choice and decision to live as a Christian every day, to come to the Lord and be his child while there’s time and opportunity? Let’s stand and scene together.