Talk is Cheap…Or Is It?
Holiness in our Speech
James 3:1-12, various Scriptures
I. Introduction
This morning we take our third look at the importance of holiness in our lives.
Holiness, you remember from our introductory message two weeks ago, is to be sought first and foremost because GOD is holy, and those who claim to be His children need to reflect outwardly the holiness He works inside us.
Last week we talked about the battle ground of holiness and the battle plan of holiness. The battle ground being our heart and mind, and the battle plan consisting mainly of spending more time in the Word of God, but also including such things as fellowship, worship, etc.
Today we tackle one of the tangible expressions of holiness: our speech.
I need to state at this point that this message is going to be uncomfortable for some of you.
I know that because it is uncomfortable for me.
I am going to say some things many of you may very well not want to hear, but need to be said anyway.
So if I tend to seem a little apprehensive as we begin, it is because I am new to using the pulpit to condemn what I think is ungodly behavior, in this case, speech, but I am convinced that what I have to share today is God’s message, not merely my own.
And I beg for your prayers as I bring this message.
The title of this message is, Talk is Cheap – Or Is It? I am not talking about how actions speak louder than words, but about the price we pay in our speech. You will see what I mean as we go on.
Scripture has a lot to say about our speech, with admonitions to use our tongues in ways that honor God and our fellow man. One passage in particular stands out, and it will provide the basis for our time together.
Please turn with me to James 3:1-12
-Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt [1] water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.-
Verse 11 sets the stage for the focus of my remarks today. My purpose this morning is to highlight some differences between harmful and holy speech.
We will spend contrasting harmful speech on one hand, and holy speech on the other.
Let’s begin…
II. Harmful vs. Holy Speech
A. Our first type of speech is slander. The dictionary defines slander as a false report maliciously uttered and tending to injure the reputation of a person.
Slander is a vicious activity that I hope no one here would dream of engaging in.
If you have been a victim of slander, you know the damage it can cause in your relationships with people, many of whom you had great relationships, but now avoid, ignore, or otherwise shrink from the closeness you once had.
Please allow me to read from Proverbs 11:9 – With his mouth the godless destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge the righteous escape.-
One who wants to reflect the holiness of God cannot engage in slander. It’s that simple.
“Hang on, Preacher! None of us would be so brazen as to attempt to destroy our neighbor.”
Maybe, but many Christians engage in a little thing called gossip.
Gossip: information that may or not be true, but that is nobody’s business but the person the rumor is about.
Gossip comes in different forms:
out and out rumor, inquiries about
persons from people we know might have the inside scoop (“Do you know anything about such and such?), etc.
But to me, one of the most vicious forms of gossip comes from those who call themselves Christians. It goes something like this: “We really need to pray for so and so. I heard they are going through something bad like a divorce or something.”
Most of us have either done that ourselves, or have heard it. I have something to say to you who practice this, and I say this with all the love and humility I can muster: SHAME ON YOU.
You have absolutely no business spreading gossip about people. Let me read from Proverbs 16:28.
-A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends.-
Talk is cheap – or is it? The destruction of relationships to satisfy the cravings of a busybody is a hefty price to pay, amen?
On the other hand, the type of speech God wants us to engage in is outlined in Ephesians 4:29- Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.-
Those who benefit are not just the person being talked about. It also builds up the person listening.
Chuck Swindoll has a simple rule when someone comes up to him with a “prayer request.” He simply stops the person and asks, “Can I quote you on this?” If the person says no, he simply refuses to let them go on with whatever it was they were going to “share.” It is gossip. I would suggest adopting the same practice in each of our lives.
One type of speech tears down – the other builds up. Take the high road, folks, and you can’t lose.
B. Next up is lying. I don’t think we need to spend too much time here, but to not address it would be doing a disservice to the Word of God.
Did you know God HATES a lying tongue? Listen to Proverbs 6:16-19 – There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.-
The opposite of this, of course, is truthfulness. Rather than point you to a verse or two describing the need for truthfulness, let me just point out that in Matthew’s gospel alone, Jesus uses the phrase, “I tell you the truth…” 30 times. If holiness is to be a reflection of God’s working in our lives, isn’t it obvious that we should reflect the truthfulness demonstrated by Christ?
Talk is cheap – or is it? The price of lying is to damage your relationship with a holy God who hates lies, but loves truth.
C. Our third form of speech is cursing, specifically what we call “cussing.”
I want to start with the problem of using the Lord’s name in vain.
Before we move on here, I want to warn you that I am going to use a word that we don’t like, but appears in the King James Version over a dozen times: damn. The Bible uses the word always to mention condemnation by God. Think about that for a minute. A phrase that is all too popular calls for God to condemn many things or people. Is that what you really want when you say that? There is a story I found to illustrate this point. Listen up.
-One hot summer day a young farmer came from his cornfield hot and tired. He took the name of the Lord in vain, cursing the cornfield for being such a grassy mess. He finally succeeded in cleaning the field thoroughly, the rain came, the sun shone, but the field of corn refused to grow as it should. When harvest time came the farmer complained that he didn’t make enough corn to pay the fertilizer bill. His wife calmly asked, “Didn’t you ask God to damn that field of corn?”
A quick note here. A vocabulary consisting mainly four-letter words and graphic descriptions of immoral activities has NO PLACE in the life of a Christian. A foul mouth may endear you to your non-Christian friends, but it does not endear you to God, and it gives a false picture of the cleansing Christ gives if our speech is no different than the world’s.
Folks, not only is it NEVER appropriate to curse, it is ALWAYS appropriate to ask others to stop doing it, especially in our presence.
While in college, I was in the basketball pep band. One night, during the game, one of our players made some sort of mistake. I don’t remember what it was – maybe he missed a shot or something. I don’t know. But the guy next to me shouted the name of Jesus Christ at the top of his lungs in anger.
I looked at him and calmly said, “You don’t have to shout, you know. He hears you okay without shouting.” He looked at me like I was a little crazy, so I said, “Jesus Christ can hear you without your shouting His Name.” He looked at me again, but he got the point. He stopped, and we continued through the evening.
Taking the Lord’s name in vain is not just at issue with cussing. Take a look with me at Exodus 20:7 – The King James Version says, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.-
The NIV puts it this way – You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His Name.-
What are some ways we misuse the name of the Lord? Cursing is one of them, but how about such things as taking oaths in His Name? You know, I swear to do this or that thing, or “I didn’t do it, I swear in the Name of God.”
Jesus said, “But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your `Yes’ be `Yes,’ and your `No,’ `No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Another way to misuse His name is to claim to be a Christian and not live for Him. Or to use His Name to justify harmful treatment of other people.
Take for example the issue of slavery. That very issue was the major factor in this denomination forming. Certain people of a certain mainline denomination felt that slavery was not supported by Scripture, and when met with opposition, they left and started another church, which, after a couple of transitions, became the Wesleyan Church.
Yet today, there are who claim to be part of the Body of Christ who would have us believe that it is okay to hate members of another race, and justify injury and even murder in the name of Jesus.
I could not believe what I saw on 60 Minutes one night a number of years ago. It was about a KKK group down south, and about one family in particular. One of the scenes showed them saying grace over their dinner. I just about vomited.
What does Scripture say? God is hate? NO! NO! NO! Scripture says that God is love! In fact, ask anyone of these people what motivates them. They will say the protection of the white race, because (now listen to this) they are afraid of the minority population in our country. Just this last Friday, former Klansman David Duke announced the formation of a new group to counteract the growing black and hispanic numbers.
Listen to 1 John 4:16-18 – God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement, because in this world we are like Him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
But you say, “What’s the problem? We don’t have many blacks or hispanics around here?”
In one of my sociology courses in college, my professor stated that we tend to be prejudiced against the minority we live closest to.
Search your hearts and look at how you treat the Native Americans around here. Can you interact without prejudice and discriminate behavior?
What’s this got to do with holiness in our speech? Simply that our speech reveals our attitudes. And to speak in ways that attempt to justify fear and hatred in the Name of Jesus is to misuse the Name of God, and it is wrong.
Talk is cheap – or is it? God is jealous for His Name, and He will punish for its misuse.
III. Conclusion
Whew!! We need to shut this down for today. We have covered a bit of ground, and I don’t think there is any doubt of my stance on holiness in our speech.
This has been very hard for me. I mentioned before that you won’t hear much of this type of thing from me.
But God wouldn’t let me ignore this issue of holiness in our speech, and in our actions, which we will discuss next week.
You may be guilty of one or more of these issues. The need for you is to repent of it, and seek His forgiveness.
He will forgive, and He promises a fresh start. We are going to pray, and then sing a closing hymn.
But before we pray, I want to leave a few seconds of quiet, allowing God to speak to you individually. I am not going to ask you to raise your hands, or come to the altar. But I will ask that you honestly allow God to have His way in your speech.
(30 second silence).
(Pray)
