Better #4 - Careful Words
Message Description
Strip District Campus Pastor, Joel Haldeman, teaches on the Book of Proverbs regarding the words we carefully construct in our daily lives.
Message Transcript
I probably don't need to convince you that our words are powerful. I remember so vividly when I was a teenager and had my learner's permit. I was driving with my dad and I had done something while I was driving. I was so inconsequentially bore you to hear what it was, but almost 20 years later I remember my dad saying to me, "You did a nice job with that." Those words stuck with me. They can have a powerful effect, can't they?
When my wife was about the same age, she stayed after school one day so that a teacher could help her understand a concept in chemistry that she wasn't quite getting. For my wife the traditional method of school where you like memorize facts and regurgitate it on a test just wasn't a style of learning that she excelled at. So along the way, there were a lot of well-meaning teachers that would say things to her that were actually really hurtful. This teacher looked at her with that pitying look and said, "Don't worry Amy, you have a good heart." Now, of course that gave her just sort of this, "watch me do it without chemistry" sort of attitude and I wish some of those teachers could see her today, some of the work that she's done and the business that she's built on her own without the periodic table of elements.
Why is it that we forget so many things, so many of the details of our lives that there are certain conversations that will never leave our memory. I think there's two things that we can all identify with. The first is that we've all had words of life and death spoken to us. Words that have lifted us up and words that have left us with scars. And the second is that we are all aware that we have the power to do the exact same thing. But our words have power and they can inflict deep harm or incredible blessing on other people. My guess is that you have words out there that you wish that you could take back, things that you wish went unspoken.
So the book of Proverbs gives us wisdom on our words. It teaches us how we can speak words of life, how we can have the courage to say the good things that need to be said. It teaches us how we can handle the words of death that are spoken by others and how to make sure we withhold those in the future.
The book of Proverbs has a lot of things to say about words and their power. We could do an entire series on words and speech from the Book of Proverbs. So what I've tried to do here is to concentrate all the Proverb says into a couple of simple statements. I want to give you a summary statement, first of all, of what Proverb says about words and then we're going to talk about two categories that determines.
So here's the summary statement. It's words have the power of life and death. You saw it in a couple of those Proverbs on the screen. Proverbs 18:21 says, "The tongue has the power of life and death and those who love it will eat its fruit." The idea is that our mouth is like a tree that puts out fruit. Some of the fruit will be good and some of the fruit will be bad, but whatever fruits the tree puts out, we will eat. It will come back to us. Proverbs 10:11 says, "The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life." While Proverbs 13:3 says, "Those who speak rashly will come to ruin." But you already know that this is true because this has been your experience in life.
But let's be frank about something. There's very little that's written in the Book of Proverbs or in the wisdom literature that's truly surprising. It doesn't take special knowledge to understand some of the problems. Think about a modern proverb that you've surely either said or have spoken to you, "It takes a village to raise a child." No one hearing that proverb is surprised, right? I know that it's true. So the hard thing about proverbs is not the ability to understand it. The difficulty is that it requires character. Very basic premise of proverbs is that we need to listen and listen requires humility, which takes character.
So here's what this means for our premise. The premise being that words have the power of life and death. It means that the premise is not really our answer today. We need to get below the premise. We need to understand the character that is necessary in order for that premise to come about. We need to go deeper and understand what separates life giving words from death giving words.
Proverbs lays out many differences between the words that bring life in the words that bring death. Again, I've tried to synthesize this down to a basic idea. Two categories. And here's the first. The first category is truthful words. Words that give life are first of all true. I think this is a category where as a society we are universally insane. Because we all agree that in order for our society to function minimally, truth is necessary. We require it. We depend on it in our workplaces. It's necessary in business transactions, we expect it in relationships. It's the basis of our entire judicial system, right? If somebody is swearing to tell the truth and whatever they're saying is admissible as evidence.
Yet at the same time, we've accepted deceptive words as a tolerable means of communication. You can probably count on 10 fingers or less how many days it's been since somebody lied to you or said something deceptive to you. And many of our workplaces, deception to the customer, so the client or to another business is not only acceptable, it's expected, right? None of us are surprised anymore when we find out that a politician has lied. It's just normal. But again, back to this principle in the wisdom literature, wisdom isn't complicated, but it's rarely practiced.
So a couple of the words about truth from Proverbs. Proverbs 12:19 says, "Truthful lips endure forever, but allying tongue lasts only a moment." Proverbs 19:9, "A false witness will not go on punished and whoever pours out lies will perish." Lies that lead to perishing deception that leads to death. Proverbs gives us this advice with that in mind. 22:23 says, "Buy the truth and do not sell it. Wisdom instruction in insight as well." Once you think about the language of that buy, purchase wisdom, purchase truth, it's worth the cost in order for you to obtain it. Now what that Proverb is saying is clearly that it's costly for you and I to obtain wisdom. It's costly for us to obtain truth. But I want you to think about further implication of this idea. And it's that truth is costly. Truth costs you. It costs you to use plain, honest speech. It costs you to not shift the blame to another person. It costs you to own your own failures.
My wife is in an industry where tax evasion is more common than the alternative. And she's made a decision not to do business with people that are trying to skip taxes. In some ways it would implicate her if she did. But that decision costs her. It costs us. But nonetheless, that's a principle in our lives. Truth costs us. But I would argue that deception will cost you even more.
Yeah, there's a cost to telling a lie. There's a psychological cost that comes from not being true to yourself. There's a real physical cost that comes from doing what you have to do to maintain your fabricated world. There's an emotional cost that comes from living in fear of being found out, right? So for all of those reasons, Proverbs says it, "Deception or falsehood is simply unwise."
Now, I think you'd agree with that, whether you're someone who calls herself a Christian or not. But when you put this in the context of Christianity, it becomes all the more important because God defines himself with truth. It's a fundamental part of the character of God. There's a couple of verses from the book of John. John 14:6 Jesus says, "I am the truth." John 8:31 says, "If you abide in my word, you will know that truth and the truth will set you free." John 16:13, "When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth." And then likewise, the enemy of God is deception. Satan is referred to as the father of lies. The first sin that's recorded in the Bible is Satan coming to this first couple and lying to them. Or then from cover to cover over and over again. We have this command in the Bible. Do not be deceived.
See, the mission of God throughout the Bible has been to enter into the world of humans and wake us up from our deception and we're deceived. We think about our sin in ways that is wrong, that is false. And God comes to break this little bubble where we're comparing ourselves to other people and saying, "I'm a little bit better than that person, so I'm going to be okay." God has a mission of truth to help us see how devastating our sin really is. But his mission is not only to be a mission of speaking truth, it's the turn his followers into other truth speakers. So if you are somebody who calls yourself a believer, then you have a mission of truth telling. And to do anything other than tell the truth is to fight against a core value of a family of God.
Now we'll come back in a minute to talk about motivation. What motivates truth? The premise in Proverbs is that they're words that give life and that are words that give death. Words that give life are always words that are true. But not every true word is a word that gives life. There's a second descriptor that's necessary. Our second descriptor is this. "While the words must be truthful, they must also be carefully wielded." Carefully wielded words are words that are spoken at appropriate times with care given to their delivery.
Few weeks ago I ran into some old friends and we had a quick conversation and nothing that they said to me was earth shattering. Nothing that they said was surprising, but what they said was so carefully wielded. The timing was just right and it was exactly what I needed to hear. They didn't even know it, but their words were carefully wielded. On the other hand, many years ago when my dad was battling brain cancer, we found out about a doctor many hours away from where he lived. That was the leading expert in this particular type of cancer. This guy was known as being the top of his field. So my dad spent a lot of time traveling and spending time in his office. But what we came to find out is this guy was awful to have a conversation with. His bedside manners were so bad that while the things that he said were true, they weren't carefully wheeled.
So we think about careful words. Proverbs gives us a bunch of different categories of care. Again, truth is not at issue here. Care is the issue. I'll give you a couple of them. Controlled speech. Controlled speech is when we do not speak out of anger or speak out of some strong emotion. Proverbs 15:1 says, "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."
I was driving recently and came upon this intersection and a cross that there was somebody standing in the middle of the road. The left side of the road was blocked. The right side was maybe blocked. There was one cone, but it was pretty far over to the right side. And the person standing in the middle had their back toward me. So I just sort of roll up slowly, put my window down, stop next to him, and he turns and looks at me and says, "Where are you going?" "To the bank." And he says, "Can't you see me standing here?" And I had this moment, okay? He responds to me with this sarcastic like, "Didn't you see me here?" And I could've just been like, "Oh my bad." Put the car in reverse, backed up, went a different way. But no, I've responded in a sarcastic way. And then he responds in a sarcastic way. We're being all kinds of sarcastic and finally I just back up and drive off.
Now, it wasn't that big of a deal, but both of us left that conversation very frustrated, right? Why? Because we didn't have controlled speech. Appropriate speech is the next category. Proverbs 15:23, "A person finds joy in giving an apt reply and how good is a timely word?" The idea is that there's truth, but there's also the right time for truth.
I had a really close friend who a couple of years ago when my dad again was battling this cancer. He said to me, "Do you think your mom is going to remarry?" And I had one of those, "Bro, come on. A good conversation. Let's wait six months."
The third category is constructive speech. Proverbs says a lot about gossip and gossip is speech that might be true, but it's not constructive. Proverbs 11:13 says, "A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret."
And then a fourth category. This is limited speech. Just keeping silent. Sometimes the best thing to do is to not say anything. Proverbs 12:23, "The prudence keep their knowledge to themselves, but a fool's heart blurts out folly." Notice what it says. Keep knowledge. Keep truth to yourself. My wife gave me permission to tell this story. When she was a teenager she had met this couple that was married. In the course of their conversation, ask them how they got engaged. And their engagement story was like he came over to her house and asked her to marry him. My wife was like, "Oh. So it wasn't all that special." So when I asked her to marry me, I just went over to her house and asked her.
In that case, it's better just to keep silence, right? Sometimes it's better to just keep our words to ourselves. Now I show you all of those examples from Proverbs just to make this point. It's not enough to just speak truthful words. Words that give life are truthful words that are carefully wielded, and that's the idea I want you to see in the book of Proverbs. Words that give life are true words carefully wielded. That we have to pay attention to avoid both deception and recklessness with our words. Now my guess is that you wouldn't disagree with most of what I just said. We should all be true. We should all be careful. And all of that serves to make our society better.
I'm selling a car on Craigslist right now. I'm reminded by the sheer number of people that want me to ship my car to Uganda. That there are a lot of people that have a section of their life that just live in deception. What's easy for you and I to do is to look at those people and say, "These people are wrong. They are the bad people and I'm part of the good people." Right? But they're not all that different than you and I. Because what they've done for one reason or another is they've compartmentalize their life and said, for whatever reason, "It's okay for me to lie here." Maybe they feel like the world has slighted them and this is their world. This is their way of making it fair. I don't know.
But my guess is that while they've accepted deceitfulness in that particular area of their life, that there's probably other areas of their life where they expect truth. But in their relationships they expect truthfulness, right? You and I do the same thing. We compartmentalize that one little area of our life where it's okay for me to be deceitful here because that's what everybody in the industry does. Because that's what my supervisor expects of me and I just have to go along with it. So the question is, "Why do we do it?" This is where our conversation becomes Christian. In Luke 6:45 Jesus said this, "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks."
So when we're dealing with a speech problem, whether it's reckless words or deceitful words, we have to realize that we're not talking about a tactical problem. We're not talking about a discipline, we're talking about ultimately a heart problem. I want you to think of it this way. I have a child who lies. All my kids lie, but I have one child in particular that lies more than usual and I'm concerned about it. But I can't stop this child from lying. I've tried. I've tried explaining to this kids like, "You're building a life on lies. This is the trajectory you're on. This is where that leads." We've tried reasoning. We've tried punishment, but none of that gets at the heart of the problem.
See, this child lies because they're afraid. Something happens and they know it's their fault and they're afraid that they're going to get in trouble. So protect themselves, they build this wall of lies. It's fear that leads to protection. Now listen, I believe that fundamentally, you and I, we almost all the time do what we think is best for us. But where we get in trouble is that sometimes what we think is best for us is not always actually best for us. We lie because we think it's best for us. Because we think that we can protect ourselves, that we can guard ourselves and whatever it is that we want to feel safety.
Why do we lie on taxes? Because we want to guard our financial security, because we don't want to pay a little bit more. Why do we lie when someone asks, "Did you do this? Was that you?" Because we want to guard our reputation because we don't want to be known as someone who makes mistakes. Why do we overstate or understate things? Because we want to guard the way people think about us. We want to be known as someone who's adventurous or successful or interesting or wealthy or what... Fill in the blank. Why don't we fudge the line on the business proposal? Because we want to guard our job security because there's a fear that if we don't that this customer or client or whatever, it's going to go someplace else. And what we fail to realize is that living an honest life is actually the safest way to live.
See the beauty of Christianity is that you can let your guard down. The beauty of Christianity is that you don't need to lie because your lies don't help you at all. You've already been protected. About once a year I have this really embarrassing thing that happens to me where I'm driving and a leaf will fly up in front of my car and I'll duck out of the way because I think it's going to impale me. And then I look around the car to see if anybody else noticed, right? I realize I'm surrounded in a cage of steel and laminated glass. This little stupid leaf isn't going to fly through the window and hurt me. I'm protected. But this is exactly the way that we need to think about Christ because a lie is no different than just trying to duck from a leaf for the Christian.
Jesus has said the most devastating thing that will ever be said about you, that you're a sinner, that you have not lived up to God's glory, that the only thing that you are worthy of is the wrath of God. But you can't even live up to your own standard, let alone God's standard. So any time someone has something on you, they don't know the half of it. It's far worse than they think. So you have nothing to protect because the worst thing that could ever be said about you has already been said, and it's been said publicly.
On the other hand, for the Christian, God has already said the best possible thing that could ever be said about you. That you are made intentionally with the thumbprint of God on your life. That you have value that is far greater than anything else in this world, simply by nature of your birth, not based on what you do. That Jesus Christ has entered into this world and died for your sin. Paying the greatest price that has ever been paid and establishing your value. He also lived the perfect life on your behalf that you could never live so that in the sight of God you are perfectly righteous. And no one will ever be able to say anything better than that about you.
Now, why lie? What do you have to protect? We already know the truth. The worst thing that could possibly said has been said about you. You can't possibly create an identity that's better than the one that God has given you. You are already a part of the most powerful, wealthy family that will ever exist. You have a retirement already laid up for you that is better than anything you can imagine. So to lie or to be deceptive, it's like ducking when a leaf flies at your car. You are in a cage of steel protected by the words of God. When we accept that reality, we can relax.
I think we can say something similar about reckless speech. Reckless speech, careless speech, I think, is ultimately motivated by a desire to feel free. It feels freeing to blurt out what we're thinking when we're mad. It feels freeing to speak our mind because it's hard to keep it in. Feels freeing to run someone down with our words. I had a friend once who made a habit of starting conversations by saying a couple of these phrases, "I just have to get this off my chest. I need to put this out there. I know you're not going to like this, but I need to say it." Maybe you've had someone like that in your life. I think we all could admit to of saying that before. Why? Because in that moment we think that it's in our best interest that we're going to feel free if we can simply get it off our chest. I mean, you understand the rationale. Even that language, if there's something on my chest, it's restricting my breath I need to get it out so that I can breathe so that I can feel free.
But let's just think about it for a moment. You don't really think that venting to the person that you're upset with is going to bring you more freedom, do you? That's absurd. In fact, in this person that I knew, it didn't bring about freedom. That brings about slavery because you create this cloud of distrust in all the people around you that any moments they could have something that they need to get off their chest and that doesn't lead to freedom. Now, there is certainly a time and a place to get something off your chest, but that's done with a close friend. Someone who's not going to be offended by what you have to say, right?
See what we know is that as a society, freedom doesn't come from everybody's just going out and doing whatever they want, right? That it's within the bounds of agreed upon restraints that we can all have our most amount of freedom. What we have to come to see is that the feeling of freedom isn't the same as actually having freedom. So for the Christian, we look to the restraints of Christ. We see the restraints of Christ and we understand that within the restraints of Christ, we actually have our maximum amount of freedom that it's in using care with our words that were given more options. But when we blurt things out, when we're a hothead, when we speak negatively about other people, that it's in those instances that we actually restrict our freedom.
Now, I think all of this gives us great insight into how we handle the reckless and deceitful words of other people leveled at us. I mean, I hope that first of all, this is instructive in how we can become people of truthful words and careful words, but also helps us understand how to process other people's words. The next time someone says to you, "I need to get this off my chest." Or it's a similar type of conversation you know right there, in that moment, that they are not saying something that's going to serve you. They're serving their own folly.
And then likewise, why is this person lying to me? They're lying to you because they're afraid. Maybe they're afraid because of some environment that you've created, but maybe it has nothing to do with you. So in both cases, when we come to label those words as folly, it takes all the power out of the punch. In both cases, instead of getting angry or frustrated with that person, we should be motivated to have kind of a Holy sadness because this person is not finding freedom in Christ, because this person is not finding safety in Christ.
Listen, your words are the most powerful thing that you possess. As we gather together on a weekend for worship, both in Wexford and the Strip District in Butler, in the chapel, you who are listening to this have a lot of power. You have power in your money, you have power in your possessions, you have power in your accomplishments, in your resume, in your relationships. But the most powerful thing that you possess is your words and they can be used for great harm or for great good.
When you and I come to find our safety in Christ, we can speak words of truth. We will have no fear and no need to protect, no need to hide, no need to lie. When you and I come to find freedom in the restraints of Christ, then we can speak words that are carefully wielded and not reckless. It's all together. We will have the ability to speak words that give life and lift people up.
Let me pray for us. God, help us to find both safety and restraint in you so that we can speak words of life. And when we don't, and when we fail, our hope is once again in the steel cage of Christ's protection, that the worst thing that could ever be said has hardly been said about us. But the best thing that could ever be said has already been said about us. And we thank you and Jesus name. Amen.
