Wisdom for Your Words | Proverbs 10
Brian Hedges | July 21, 2024
Let me invite you to turn this morning to the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 10 and looking at a few other proverbs along the way as well. Today, the focus of this message is on our words: wisdom for our words, for our communication with one another.
Words are a large part of our lives. All of us spend a lot of time talking and communicating. We do that in our families, we do that in the workplace, we do it in church. We do it both in person—face-to-face communication—but also we do it with written communication. So as we think about our words this morning I want us to think about both words that we say and also words that we text or that we write or that we email to others. I want us to think about the weight of our words, the significance of our words.
Maybe you haven’t thought about this before, but we spend a lot of time talking, and those who deal with statistics have given us some numbers to think about how many words we will say. The average person spends at least about one fifth of his or her life talking. And in a single day most people will say enough words to fill up a fifty-page book. In a year, that amounts to about 132 books, each of which contains four hundred pages. That’d be about 10,400,000 words in a year that each one of us speaks. Now, if you multiply that by seventy years or so, that means that average person speaks something like 728 million words during his or her lifetime.
What really makes that a sobering fact is when we remember the words of the Lord Jesus, when he said, “I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned.”
That’s a sobering thought, that we will give some kind of account for the 728 million words that come out of our mouths, and it reminds us of how important it is that we pay attention to this currency of language that binds us together. This is one of the distinctive things about human beings, who are made in the image of God. God is a speaking God. God is a God who communicates to us. One of the things that separates us from the rest of creation on this earth is that we have this ability to communicate with one another in words, in rational and in reasonable ways, to create languages and to form ideas and to communicate those ideas to one another. It’s a tremendous gift, the gift of communication, but it’s also a tremendous responsibility, that we handle our words with wisdom.
So today, as part of this ongoing summer series in Proverbs, we want to learn how to use our words in ways that actually help and build up others instead of ways that are hurtful and harmful.
This is part of the series “How to Make Life Work: Wisdom from Proverbs,” and really, the goal of this series is to get as practical as possible in some of these specific, practical aspects of our lives, so that we can see how life is supposed to work according to the order with which God created the world. That’s what wisdom is. Wisdom in Scripture is skill for making life work in the world that God has created. So today we’re looking at our words, our tongues, our communication. We’re going to ground everything in Proverbs 10, where there’s something like a concentration of proverbs on the mouth, on the tongue, on words.
Now, if you read through Proverbs—I did this a number of years ago—I highlighted every passage in Proverbs that dealt with words or the mouth or the tongue or the lips, just highlighted in yellow, and it’s almost every page in Proverbs. Maybe no theme in Proverbs is dealt with more extensively than this one. So there’s a lot that we’re not going to be able to cover this morning, but Proverbs 10 has a lot to teach us, so I’m going to read a couple of passages from it. We’re going to look, first of all, at Proverbs 10:11-14, then drop down to verses 18-21, then verses 31-32. You can, of course, follow along on the screen. Beginning in Proverbs 10:11.
“The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,
but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
Hatred stirs up conflict,
but love covers over all wrongs.
Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning,
but a rod is for the back of one who has no sense.
The wise store up knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.”
Proverbs 10:18-21:
“Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips
and spreads slander is a fool.
Sin is not ended by multiplying words,
but the prudent hold their tongues.
The tongue of the righteous is choice silver,
but the heart of the wicked is of little value.
The lips of the righteous nourish many,
but fools die for lack of sense.”
Proverbs 10:31-32:
“From the mouth of the righteous comes the fruit of wisdom,
but a perverse tongue will be silenced.
The lips of the righteous know what finds favor,
but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse.”
This is God’s word.
I want us to look at three things together this morning.
1. The Power of Our Words
2. Guidance for Our Words
3. Transformation of Our Words
In the first point, I want us to consider why what we say matters. Our words have power, our words have influence; our words can do great good or great evil. Then in the second point I want us to learn how to speak with wisdom as Proverbs gives guidance and direction for that. Then we’re going to end by talking about how our words can be transformed, and particularly how the word of God transforms our habits of speaking.
1. The Power of Our Words: Why What We Say Matters
Proverbs 10 I think highlights this, as we see this familiar contrast between the righteous and the wicked, between the wise and the discerning and fools, in the use of their words, in their speech. We see that our words have both power for good and power for evil.
(1) First of all, our words have power for good. You can see this in the very vivid metaphors and similes that are used to describe the mouth of the righteous, the tongue of the righteous. Proverbs 10:11: “The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.”
The image of a fountain is used often in Proverbs. It’s an image that conveys that which is life-giving, that which refreshes and satisfies. It’s a source of sustaining water and life that quenches the thirst of those who receive it. This passage is telling us that the mouth of the righteous is like that. It gives life-giving words to others.
Then Proverbs 10:20 highlights the value of these words. “The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is of little value.” It’s highlighting the value of the words or the tongue of the righteous.
Notice there’s a contrast here between the righteous and the wicked, between the tongue of the righteous and the heart of the wicked. Implicit here in this verse is the understanding that it’s out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks, to quote the words of Jesus. In other words, our words are an indication of what’s going on in our inner world, our hearts and our souls. So here it’s the fruit of the righteous person’s heart that’s coming out in his words, and this is what’s valuable. It’s of great value to others, in contrast to the worthless heart of the wicked.
Then look at Proverbs 10:21, which says, “The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of sense.” Here the idea is words that feed and nourish and sustain life and bring health and healing into the lives of those who hear.
All of these metaphors—and there many more in Proverbs—are highlighting for us the power and the influence that our words can have for good. Your words, what you speak, what you say, how you communicate, what you text, what you post can have great good in the lives of other people.
(2) But your words can also have great power for evil. That’s seen in the contrast between the tongue of the righteous and the mouth of the wicked, between the wise and discerning on one hand and the fool on the other. This passage shows us that while the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, an image suggesting all that is good and life-giving and satisfying and refreshing, the mouth of the fool invites ruin (verse 14).
Think about something that’s ruined. Think about something that’s spoiled and rotten and no longer of any use. In fact, if it’s spoiled or rotten food and you eat that, it’s going to make you sick. Words can be like that. Words can lead to ruin.
Ruin is the inevitable result of the sinful use of words. Proverbs 10 highlights some of these sinful ways of using our words. There’s violence, hatred and conflict (verses 11-12), there’s lying and slander (verse 18), there is perverse or crooked speech in verses 31-32. Of course, we could add to that all of the other sins that we can commit with our tongues. You might think about gossiping or murmuring and complaining. You might think of bitter, hateful speech towards others. You might think of swearing and blaspheming the name of God. There are all these different forms of communication that are sinful and evil and bring harm.
Has it ever occurred to you that within the Ten Commandments, two of those commandments—one-fifth of those commandments—have to do with our words? “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” and, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Your words matter. Your words can do great good or great evil. You can bless others with your words, but you can also hurt and harm others with your words.
In fact, some of the other Proverbs bring out the destructive power of the tongue with other very vivid word pictures.
Take Proverbs 12:18 and 25:18. “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”
“Like a club or a sword or a sharp arrow is one who gives false testimony against a neighbor.”
Here, words are compared to a weapon that inflicts violence on others. These are words that pierce, that penetrate, that cut, that wound, that hurt, that can even kill—a club, a sword, a sharp arrow.
Then, in Proverbs 16:27-28, words are compared to a fire. “A scoundrel plots evil, and on their lips it is like a scorching fire. A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.”
Again, it’s a destructive image. In contrast to the fountain that gives life and healing and nourishment, here’s the fire that burns, that scorches, that spreads. Words can be like that.
The Puritan John Flavel summarized the positive and negative influences of our words. This is a wonderful quote included in a little booklet. You could read this in an hour, John Flavel’s Sinful Speech, and get some of this Puritan wisdom on our words. Flavel says,
“Gracious words are bread to feed and water to refresh the souls of others. A sanctified tongue is as a tree of life, but the tongues of some men break loose from under all the laws and rules of both reason and religion, and serve only to vent the froth and filth which abound in the heart. The tongue moves lightly, but falls heavily; it strikes soft, but wounds deep.”
Have you considered the power that your words can have?
There are some amazing illustrations of this in history, where words, maybe even careless words or thoughtless words or words spoken in jest or a hoax actually led to very serious and destructive consequences. Here’s one example.
In 1899, there were four newspapermen in Denver, Colorado, who were faced with this predicament: there was no news to report. They were bored, they were sitting in a bar, they were drinking their beers together, and together they came up with a plan. They conspired to invent a story, and the story was this: that China was dismantling the Great Wall of China as a sign of international goodwill, and that American engineers were bidding for the job.
They published the story, and the news began to spread. It spread across the nation and eventually reached China. When the Chinese heard, they were so outraged that as a result Chinese patriots rampaged the foreign embassies in Peking and slaughtered hundreds of missionaries. Within two months, twelve thousand troops from six countries joined forces and invaded China to protect their own countrymen. The bloodshed which followed, sparked by a journalistic hoax invented in a barroom in Denver, became the international conflagration known to every high school student as the Boxer Rebellion.
That’s the story as it’s told by Paul Harvey, the rest of the story.
It was just a hoax! It was almost a joke. It was bored newspapermen who invented a story, but it led to hundreds of people dying and thousands of people being influenced on an international scale. No wonder Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
The power of our words. Here’s the application. Here’s what you could do to grapple with the weight of your own words and the influence and power that your own words have. For the next week, take a daily inventory of your spoken and written words. Here’s the exercise: every evening, before you go to sleep, take five to ten minutes and just remember your words, your conversations, your texts throughout the day. Evaluate, were your words wise or foolish? Did they deal out life or death? Did you bless or did you curse? What words did you speak that you regret? What could you have said differently? Were there opportunities where you could have said something and you didn’t? You could have said something encouraging, you could have shared some word of blessing. Maybe you could have shared the gospel with someone or you could have encouraged a friend or a family member. Where do you need to repent?
Evaluate your words. Just do it for a week, and maybe after a week the weight of this will begin to rest on your heart and you’ll begin to see how much influence your words can have for good or for evil. You might find through this simple exercise a subtle change beginning to happen in your use of words that will lead to perhaps more harmony in your relationships, maybe reconciliation with someone that you wounded through your words—a better use of communication in your personal life. Evaluate your words. Your words have power.
2. Guidance for Our Words
Our words have power to do great good if they are used with wisdom. So we need, secondly, guidance for our words. Proverbs abounds with this guidance.
I want to talk for a few minutes now about how to speak with wisdom by giving something of a summary of the teaching of Proverbs on the positive use of our words. This is guidance for how to communicate. I want to give you four general characteristics that mark wise speech in Proverbs.
(1) Here’s the first. We could say, first of all, that wise words are faithful and true. Proverbs 24:26 says, “An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips,” and the word “honest” is literally the word “straight.” That is, a straight answer, or a straightforward answer. This is talking about integrity and honesty and reality in our speech.
In contrast to that, you have the perverse speech, or the crooked speech, or the wicked. We’ve already seen that in a couple of places in Proverbs 10. Proverbs 19:1 says, “Better the poor whose walk is blameless than a fool whose words are perverse.”
“They speak in a way that does not faithfully reflect reality.” So says Trempor Longman in his commentary.
It’s perverse speech, it’s crooked speech; it’s the opposite of that which is straight and direct and honest. Wise words are words that are faithful and true, direct and honest.
So often in our lives, when we speak, maybe without even quite realizing it, we nuance our answers in such a way as to slightly conceal reality, to not really speak with honesty and with integrity, to not be quite honest in our answers. I know that I’m guilty of this, and you probably are too. You say things that don’t quite reflect the reality, and maybe you do that to not offend, or maybe to leave a better impression of yourself, or maybe to avoid embarrassment. But if our words are to be marked with wisdom, our words should be honest, faithful, and true.
(2) Secondly, wise words are measured and few. Most of us should speak less than we do. Maybe there are a few exceptions. If you are an extreme introvert and you find it hard to speak up when maybe you should, then maybe this doesn’t apply to you. But I think most people speak more than they ought to. Most of us should probably speak less and listen more.
Listen to Proverbs on this, Proverbs 10:19. “Sin is not ended by multiplying words, but the prudent hold their tongues.”
How often do you consciously check yourself in a conversation and don’t say something that comes to your mind, instead of just letting it all gush out? The prudent hold their tongues, or, as the ESV reads, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.”
Or take Proverbs 17:27-28. “The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered. Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.”
So, even if you are a foolish person, you’re going to help yourself out by speaking less. As someone once said, it’s better to be thought a fool and remain silent than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Sometimes you’re going to be better off by just saying less. This is a mark of wisdom: restraint in the use of words. Your words are measured and few.
Here’s a good prayer to pray often. “Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord, and keep watch over the door of my lips” (Psalm 141:3).
(3) Let your words be faithful and true, let them be measured and few, and then thirdly, let your words be gentle and calm. Here’s another mark of wise words: gentle, calm speech. These are words that come from a cool temper, a soft spirit, rather than the harsh, rash, angry, disturbed heart. Words like this have great power. They can diffuse tense situations.
Proverbs 15:1: “A gentle answer [or a soft answer] turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
How often have you been in a conversation with someone else and the temperature begins to rise and you begin to escalate? You get just a little bit louder. Your statement is just a little more extreme. You start to speak in broad generalizations: “You always do this,” or “You never do this,” or “How come this always happens?” Before you know it, you’re in a heated argument with your spouse or with one of your kids or maybe even with someone at work, and it’s all because you’ve escalated instead of de-escalated in that situation.
Proverbs tells us to be calm in our speech, to be gentle, to be soft with our words. One of the best things you can do in a situation like that, when you sense the temperature is rising, is to take a step back, to actually calm your own mind, to restrain your speech for a few minutes, to start listening more intently to the other person, and then when you do speak to speak in as calm and as gentle and as measured a way as possible. You can diffuse a tense situation instead of making it worse. So many arguments could be avoided if we would learn this.
Gentle words can also be nourishing and healing. They can not only diffuse the tense situation and de-escalate, but you can actually help. You can actually bring a sense of calm rationality and love and tenderness into the conversation. Proverbs 15:4: “The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.”
Then Proverbs 25:15 shows us how persuasive and influential the gentle tongue can be. “Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.” It’s a gentle tongue, but it has power to break a bone. It’s a vivid image here that’s showing how something as soft and as gentle as the careful word can actually have great influence in a situation.
(4) Wise words are faithful and true, measured and few, gentle and calm, and fourthly, well-chosen and well-timed. This is the word “apt” that’s used in Proverbs. It means the word that is suitable, that’s fitting in a situation.
Proverbs 15:23: “A person finds joy in giving an apt reply, and how good is a timely word.” Well-chosen words, well-timed words.
Or Proverbs 25:11-12: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear.”
This is so important when we’re thinking about those times when some kind of a confrontational word is necessary. Sometimes there are needs for that. Part of being straightforward and direct with one another is that we’re willing to speak truth in a moment, but we speak with wisdom. That means you have to choose your words carefully and you have to choose the timing of your words carefully.
How often do we do our confrontation exactly the opposite way? We don’t carefully plan what we’re going to say, and we just speak off the cuff in the moment rather than having thought through the best time for it.
This can be really helpful in changing the whole way communication happens in your family. If your tendency is to bring correction, say, to your children, or a confrontation with your spouse, to do so in the heat of the moment with whatever words are coming into your mind in that moment, without having thought through it, without having prayed through it, without having done anything to prepare for it so as to have the best possible outcome—if that’s your pattern, then most likely those conversations are ending in hurt feelings, walls are being built up, and you’re not actually having those helpful and healthy conversations that you desire.
There’s an illustration of this in the life of Charles Simeon. Charles Simeon was one of the members of the Clapham sect in England in the late eighteenth century. This was the group of evangelicals who were so influential in abolishing the slave trade and so many other social goods in England at that time.
Simeon was a pastor, a preacher who was renowned for his sermons, his prayers. He was very effective in his use of words from the pulpit. But, as so often happens, those who are very skilled in speaking well to the benefit of others can also be very adept in using their tongues to hurt others. This was true in Simeon’s life. He struggled with his tongue.
One of his biographers tells us that Simeon had the bad habit of lashing out when he was irritated about mere trifles, small things. One day he was at a friend’s house and became so irritated with how the house servant was stoking the fire that he actually whacked the guy on the back! It really grieved the friend. Then, when Simeon was leaving, the servant had some kind of mixup with the bridle for the horse, and Simeon was harsh in his response to him.
Well, Simeon’s friend felt that he must confront Charles, this eloquent pastor who had sinned in the use of his tongue. So he sends him a letter, and it is a model for the measured, tactful, honest, direct, calm conversation we’re talking about. He actually wrote in the name of the servant who had been offended, signing the letter “John Softly.” He said that he could not see how a man who preached and prayed so well could get himself in such a passion about nothing and wear no bridle on his tongue. I mean, it was the perfect illustration, right, because Simeon had just gotten upset over a mixup with a bridle. And the friend, of course alluding to James 3, said essentially, “You need a bridle for your own tongue.”
To his credit, Simeon responded in a letter, April 12, 1804, and he responded directly to the servant with these words. He said, “To John Softly, from Charles Proud and Irritable, I most cordially thank you, my dear friend, for your kind and seasonable reproof.” Then he wrote to his friend, his host, Mr. Hankinson, and said, “I hope, my dearest brother, that when you find your soul nigh to God you will remember one who so greatly needs all the help he can get.”
It was a humble response, and it’s a model for us. Actually, both of them are models, a model in honest and loving, well-timed confrontation on the one hand, and a humble response on the other.
Here’s the application: Ask the Lord to teach you how to speak with wisdom. Ask the Lord for this. This should be an ongoing part of our prayer lives.
Maybe here’s one specific way to do it. When you find yourself faced with a conversation that needs to happen or a meeting that you’re going into—maybe it’s a meeting with your team, a meeting with fellow employees, or maybe it’s a subordinate, maybe it’s a performance review; if you’re in the church, maybe it’s an elders’ meeting or a team meeting of some kind; maybe it’s a conversation you’re having with your teenagers, or maybe it’s a confrontation that needs to take place with your spouse, or maybe you’re entering into a counseling situation—you pick the situation, but you know this is coming. Here’s a way to prepare. Before entering that meeting, maybe that morning, take a chapter like Proverbs 10 or Proverbs 15 or Proverbs 18. Read through the chapter and pay attention to every time the word says something about how you should use your tongue. Then ask the Lord to help you put that in practice. It will lead to more restraint, to a calmness in your speaking, to a caution in how you use your words, and a desire to minister life-giving words instead of harsh and hurtful words to others. It can change the way you talk.
3. Transformation of Our Words
We need that change. We need transformation in our speech. That’s point number three; transformation of our words. That transformation is part of what God does in his saving work in our lives. He changes our hearts, and if it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks, then a changed and transformed heart is going to bear the fruit of changed and transformed speech.
How does that happen? I want to suggest two ways. I’ll give this in the form of two exhortations. Really, what I want us to think about for a moment is how the word can change our habits of speaking.
(1) Exhortation one: Trust and follow Christ, the living and incarnate word.
Think for a minute about the words of Jesus. When you look at Jesus, who is both our example and our substitute, this is what you see. You see that Jesus never sinned once with his tongue. His words are always pure, they are always honest, they are always perfectly timed, perfectly chosen. He knew how to do confrontation, but he often spoke with such tenderness and gentleness that he extended grace and compassion to his hearers.
Here’s one example, 1 Peter 2:21-24. Peter says, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” Then notice that he focuses here partly on the words of Jesus, how Jesus spoke. “‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.”
That’s three examples of how Jesus refused to use sinful speech even when provoked. “Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” Then verse 24 is a wonderful summary of the gospel. “‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’”
Part of the gospel word for us this morning is this, that Jesus, who was perfect in every word he ever spoke—always honest, always true, always faithful, always speaking with exactly the measure of wisdom that was needed for the moment—Jesus’ words can be counted as your words, because he’s your substitute. He lived the life you should have lived; that means he spoke the words you should have spoken.
Not only that, but your words, your sinful words, words that without Christ would bring about our condemnation, those sinful words have been paid for by Jesus on the cross. You can trust your substitute so that you can be forgiven for the wrong use of speech.
But it’s not only forgiveness, it’s also imitating Christ so that we begin to speak more and more like him. Have you ever noticed how when you hang out with someone who has a different accent or different vocabulary, different forms of speech—you spend a lot of time with someone and you start sounding a little more like him! You might start picking up new words, vocabulary that you don’t typically use, but they use these words all the time, so you start using them.
Or maybe you’re in a different part of the country—this always happens to me. When I go to Texas, I come back with a little more twang in my speech, because I’m hanging out with my friends and family down there, and they don’t have this nice, midwestern, neutral accent; they have the “Texas twang.” When I hang out with them for a week or so, I’m going to pick that up again.
In the same way, if you hang out with Jesus you’re going to pick up his accent! You’re going to begin to speak as he speaks, you’re going to talk the way he talked. The living word is going to begin to transform your use of words. So trust and follow Christ, the incarnate word.
(2) Here’s the second exhortation: Internalize the written word. Listen to James. This is also wisdom literature in the New Testament. James has a lot to say about the use of our tongues. In James 1:19-21 James says,
“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save your souls.”
It’s an exhortation for how we are to use our words, and the way in which our words can be changed is by receiving the implanted word, the word implanted in your own heart and in your life, the written word of God that is internalized in life so that it begins to shape the way you speak.
This is how theologian Sinclair Ferguson beautifully explains it. He says,
“The work of the word inaugurates the Christian life [James just said we are born again through the word of truth], but it also sustains its progress. My tongue is ongoingly cleansed and transformed by, if I may so express it, what comes from God’s tongue. As the heart hears with open ears the word of God again and again, it is renewed and begins to produce a transformed tongue. The principle is this: what comes out of our mouths is more and more determined by what has come out of the mouth of God. The sanctification of the tongue is a work in us that is driven by the word God coming to us as we hear it and indwelling us as we receive it. The most important single aid to my ability to use my tongue for the glory of Jesus is allowing the word of God to dwell in me so richly that I cannot speak with any other accent. When I do, the result is ‘teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing’ and in word or deed ‘doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father’ (Colossians 3).”
Here’s the application. Commit yourself to the daily intake and internalization of God’s word. It’s not just taking it in, it’s also internalizing it. That means you’re reading it in such a way that you’re seeking to apply, to make it a part of you.
Here’s a simple way to do that. If you’re not doing this regularly now, start like this. Start with something simple. Maybe read a psalm a day or one chapter of Proverbs a day. If you want to be in the New Testament, start with a Gospel and read straight through the Gospel, one chapter a day. It’ll take you a month if you’re reading through Matthew’s Gospel; it’ll take you a little over two weeks if you’re reading Mark’s Gospel. Read a chapter a day, and as you read look for some particular insight, some truth, some gospel promise, some teaching or instruction of wisdom or from Jesus, or one of the epistles—wherever it is, take one nugget of truth, and then maybe write that down in a notebook or journal. It only takes a few minutes, but it’s a way to start to burn those words deeper into your mind and in your heart, so that you’re thinking in terms of application of the word in your life. As you do that, you will find over time that the word, the word of God, is transforming your habits of speech.
We’ve seen the power of our words, power for good or evil, for life or death. We’ve seen guidance for our words, as we learn to speak with wisdom, as our words are faithful and true, measured and few, gentle and calm, well-chosen and well-timed. We’ve seen now the transformation of our words as we follow the incarnate word and internalize the written word.
Maybe we can end with this prayer:
“May the mind of Christ, my Savior,
Live in me from day to day,
By his love and power controlling
All I do and say.
“May the word of God dwell richly
In my heart from hour to hour,
So that all may see I triumph
Only through his power.”
Let’s pray.
Father, we thank you this morning that you are a God who speaks, that you have spoken in your word, inspired by your Spirit, written down and preserved, and now available to us for our meditation, for our growth, for the transformation of our lives. You’ve spoken supremely through your Son, the Lord Jesus, the word made flesh, and given through him a model for us to follow, a model of perfect, incarnate humanity, where every word was well-chosen and well-timed, perfectly suited to the needs of those who heard—Jesus, who never harmed or hurt anyone with his words but always spoke what was best and what was needed.
We pray, Lord, that by your word and through your Spirit you would teach us to speak in the same way, that we would acquire this holy accent in our language, that we would be given a new vocabulary, a new way of speaking, new tones of voice, a complete and utter transformation of the way we speak, whether in person or through our devices, that we would speak words that honor you and that honor and build up others.
Lord, would you forgive us this morning for the sinful use of our tongues? Would you help us do the necessary inventory and self-examination to see where we need to change, and would you give us the grace then to put into practice the wisdom of your word and to change as we imitate Christ?
Father, as we come to the Lord’s table this morning, we ask that you would help us come with our eyes set on Christ, on his doing and his dying and his rising on our behalf, that we would come trusting not in ourselves and in what we’ve done but trusting in Christ and Christ alone, our Savior, our substitute, and our example. May we feed on Christ as we take the bread and the juice and as we set our faith and our hearts on him. We ask you to draw near to us in these moments. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
