Disordered Speech, Reordered

I'm going to invite Vicky up who's going to read scripture for us.

So Vicky's going to read the passage that Corey's going to preach from.

! This is James chapter 3 verses 1 to 12.

James 3:1–12

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers,

for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

For we all stumble in many ways,

and if anyone does not stumble in what he says,

he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.

If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us,

we guide their whole bodies as well.

Look at the ships also.

Though they are so large and are driven by strong winds,

they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.

So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.

How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!

And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.

The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body,

setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature,

can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind.

But no human being can tame the tongue.

It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With it we bless our Lord and Father,

and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing,

my brothers, these things ought not to be so.

Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?

Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs?

Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

Well, we read from James, the letter of James,

and this is a passage about speech that Vicki read for us.

So James is writing this letter,

and he is the little brother of Jesus Christ,

biologically the little brother.

And he grew up in the same house as Jesus,

as the Son of God.

And so that has to mean that he would have shared so many meals with Jesus,

and he would have very probably slept in the same room as Jesus,

and shared a room with Jesus.

And that means that James is writing to us

as someone who has heard,

the only person in human history who has spoken perfectly,

who never sinned one time with the way they spoke,

the words that they spoke.

And so he knows what he's talking about

when he writes to us about perfect speech.

The central question of this book,

I've been saying each week is,

what does a person who has faith in Jesus Christ look like

in the way they live?

So what is lived faith?

So James has said many times

that a disciple of Jesus

doesn't just believe certain things,

but their faith is manifest.

They actually act out their faith.

So faith has a tell.

Faith is a lived.

Faith without works is dead faith.

And we've seen so far three things.

This is a summary of all five sermons

we've already had in the book of James

in about 45 seconds.

Three things that James has told us

is the tell of living faith in your life.

Number one, you are a person who can suffer

differently than the way the world suffers.

So you suffer in a way where suffering actually can grow you,

not devastate you, not destroy you.

And the second way he's told us is that

you're a follower of Jesus living out your faith

when you are shaped by the word of God.

So you're ingesting the word of God,

hearing it, and also doing it

to the point where your opinions,

your personal opinions,

become less and less important.

And instead, what the Bible says

is far more important for you.

And then the third way he said

that faith has a tell.

Faith shows up is through good works.

So faith without good works is dead faith.

And so those good works are especially

works of mercy to the afflicted,

to the poor, to the widow,

to the orphan, James says.

Now, in all of that,

he is talking about the wise life,

what it means to live a life of wisdom.

So he mentioned the word wisdom in chapter one.

And we said at the end of chapter one

that he introduces everything he's going to say

in the rest of the book in chapter one.

And so now he's returning to the concept of wisdom

and really just saying,

all I've been talking about in this letter

is how to live a wise life.

And that's the difference between a wise life

and a foolish life.

So I've tried to go out of my way a few times

to say that the letter of James

is not just the Proverbs of the New Testament.

I have preached on James in the past and said that,

and I've realized I don't think that's right.

I think that's wrong.

Instead, James is not aphoristic.

He has one whole argument that he's making.

But it is like Proverbs

in that this is New Testament wisdom literature.

So he's teaching us about what it means

to live the wise life.

Now, in the Bible, there is law in this life.

There are laws, there are laws in our land.

And laws tell you very specifically

things to do and things not to do.

So if you're wondering, should I murder?

There is a law for that in the Bible.

Thou shalt not murder.

It's very clear.

Should I commit adultery?

No, thou shalt not commit adultery.

Should I steal?

No, thou shalt not steal.

That's law.

But wisdom is something beyond law.

So what is wisdom?

Wisdom is how to live life skillfully before God,

living for God into this world

when there are no laws telling you

what to do in every situation.

So the Bible has all sorts of laws,

but then it doesn't tell you who you should marry

or whether you should get married.

It doesn't tell you what job you should take.

It doesn't tell you if you should live in the city

or the suburbs or rural.

The answer is city, by the way.

I'm just kidding.

We love the suburbs and the rural communities.

The Bible doesn't tell you all that.

There's a thousand things you decide all the time,

every day.

What should you eat?

When should you wake up?

These are questions of wisdom, not of law.

And so James is here trying to say

that a Christian is seeking,

walking the path of becoming a more and more wise person

by becoming what?

A doer of the word, ingesting the word

so that it pours out of you in your decision-making.

You live instinctively wise.

Now of all the domains of wisdom that there can be,

and there are so many,

speech, language is the final frontier.

And what I mean by that is that

words are the hardest, James is saying,

to get control of.

Now we don't think that way intuitively,

but it is true.

It's so easy to control our bodies from violence.

Most of us do not struggle walking around in the city,

getting frustrated and punching people in the face.

We don't struggle with that.

We don't.

We can actually restrain ourselves physically in so many ways,

but boy, is it hard to restrain your words.

And even in a moment where that colleague,

that friend, that person, that neighbor is saying that to you,

and you just want to tell them what you think about them,

you want to turn around with an insult,

maybe in the moment you hold it in,

but the domain of speech goes so deep that we know we don't just have words existing externally,

externally, spoken, out loud.

We have this whole invisible domain of speech,

the internal dialogue.

And in the internal dialogue,

we might be withholding what we really think about somebody in their face,

but boy, is it raging on the inside.

Internally.

See, the domain of speech is internal and external,

and what tends to happen is that the external leaks what's really going on in the internal eventually.

Words are the final frontier.

They're so hard to get a hold of.

They're really the last domain of wisdom James is telling us here.

Jesus said it so plainly,

out of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And so words are the premier revelation of what's true about our hearts.

And James comes and says something very plain to us today,

and that's that our hearts are disordered as sinners,

therefore our speech patterns are disordered.

So let's think about two things.

We're going to spend,

we're going to look at speech in James twice,

and today is,

we're going to see the power,

the potential of speech.

That's what James talks about in these 12 verses,

and then the real source of that power.

And then next time when we come back,

we'll get into some real practicals about how to grow as wise speakers,

but that's not for today.

Today,

the potential and the power of speech,

and the source of the power of speech,

because that's what these 12 verses are really about.

So let's look at it together.

First,

the power of speech.

Now we children learn,

we maybe teach,

I don't know,

we children learn,

the famous rhyme,

sticks and stones may break my bones,

but words will never hurt me.

And it's probably been said a million times

that whoever originally wrote that

was somebody that was deeply hurt by words,

and doing anything they could

to conjure a defense mechanism,

a coping mechanism,

a strategy on the playground somewhere.

We know it's not true.

Sticks and stones can break our bones.

Far worse than physical pain

is pain that can come through words.

Far deeper.

The soul is so much harder to heal than the body.

And so words have a power

that sticks and stones do not have.

Now James tells us that in four images

at the heart of this passage.

So you'll see the first image,

he's trying to teach us that in verse three.

So if you look with me at verse three,

if we put bits into the mouths of horses

so that they obey us,

we guide their whole bodies as well.

As much as it's true that out of the heart,

the mouth speaks,

James uses an illustration here to say,

from the mouth,

the heart is formed.

And so when you put a bit,

a little metal bit into the mouth of a horse,

you have this tiny little instrument

that can steer a massive horse around.

In the same way,

the tongue, he says, is very small,

but it has the power to form you

and to form other people.

It's got great power.

So if you are constantly speaking words of bitterness,

you become a bitter person more and more.

If you speak words of rage,

you become an angry person more and more.

If you speak words of encouragement and gratitude to people,

you become a grateful person

and an encourager more and more.

You see, it's so small,

yet it has such power of formation.

The second image is in verse four.

So he keeps going.

These are just going to build on each other.

Look at the ships also,

though they are so large

and are driven by strong winds,

they are guided by a very small rudder

where the pilot directs.

Same exact idea.

The tongue is so small,

yet he's escalating the image

because a big seaship is a lot bigger than a horse.

So he's saying,

not only do the words have a great power to form you,

but words have such a power to form the world,

to shape the world,

like a little bitty rudder that moves the Titanic.

So your words have great power, great potential.

He keeps going the third,

and I think probably the most important

is in verse five and six.

He makes the point in verse five.

So the tongue is small,

but it boasts of great things.

It has so much potential, so much power.

But then here's the third illustration he gives us.

How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire.

Now in Scotland,

I meant to look this up and I forgot,

but I'm not sure all the rules of making fires

out in the highlands.

But I know that if you go walk in the highlands,

if you go walk Monroe's,

you get very cold.

And you know the power of a great fire.

You're walking, you're freezing,

you're hungry, it's dark.

You put a great campfire and you sustain it.

You put it where it's supposed to be.

You surround it with rocks

and it feeds you when you're hungry.

It gives you light in the midst of darkness.

It heats you when you're freezing cold.

It's a wonderful instrument,

an instrument of life.

James says the tongue can be a campfire,

an instrument of life,

giving life in all the right places it needs.

But he says,

when you do not tend to that fire

in dry conditions,

it gets out of control

and it burns down the forest

and then it burns down the city

and then it burns down the nation

and becomes a national fire.

He's saying that your speech has such power

to give life and to burn down a nation.

And he's probably taking this straight out of Proverbs 18.21.

So this is where James is the New Testament Proverbs.

The tongue, the writer of Proverbs says,

has the power of life and death.

And that's exactly what James is saying here.

Now there's one more,

the fourth and final image.

And just notice as we read it,

the escalation of the verdict.

He hasn't given us a clear verdict yet.

He's only talked about how much potential our speech has.

But in verse seven and eight,

he gets to the verdict.

Every kind of beast and bird,

every reptile,

every sea creature can be tamed

and has been tamed by humanity.

But no human being can tame the tongue.

It's a restless evil full of deadly poison.

Now, he said,

your speech has such great potential.

It's like a fire.

It's like a rudder on a mighty ship.

It's like a bit in a horse's mouth.

You can form people.

You can turn nations.

You can do all sorts of things.

But then he gets to the point,

the verdict.

And he says,

we have gone out

and we have tamed every type of animal there is,

including reptiles.

I didn't really know you could tame all the reptiles,

but it says here,

you can tame all the reptiles.

We've tamed snakes.

You can charm a snake,

a poisonous snake,

and get it to stop spitting its venom.

But he said that the tongue cannot be tamed.

Here's the verdict.

He says,

no human being can tame the poison of the tongue of speech.

And what is he doing there?

He's thinking back to the Old Testament

and he's quoting,

he's summarizing Genesis 1 to 3.

Because in the beginning,

God made humanity in his image and said,

I give you dominion over the birds and the fish

and the reptiles and all the animals.

And he said,

we've done that.

We've been able to tame all the beasts.

But the one beast that captured us was our speech.

And remember,

the serpent himself came into the garden

and by speech,

he questions God's speech.

By speech,

he said,

you can't really trust what God says.

And Adam and Eve fell for that.

They believed that.

And it's by speech,

by the speech of the serpent,

that we became serpent-like speakers.

He's saying,

you can tame snakes,

but you cannot tame the snake of your speech.

It spits poison.

It's like a viper.

So that's James' mighty verdict.

The power of speech,

the potential of speech,

and yet the instrument of fire,

of destruction that human beings have created from speech.

Now,

let's prove it for a second.

How do wars start?

Wars don't begin with violence.

Wars begin with words.

Wars begin with propaganda and lies.

And how do relationships break?

Relationships break through a long history of words,

ill-spoken,

through words that diminished the other,

that dismissed them,

that betrayed them.

That hurt them,

that wounded them in a way that they couldn't heal.

How do companies collapse?

Companies collapse internally through a culture of gossip,

through a culture of not telling the truth,

of infighting,

of rumor,

of deceit.

How do friendships break?

How do churches split?

How do denominations get started?

Quite often through gossip and deceit

and words that wound

and words that break relationships.

Violence can break the body,

but words destroy souls

and it is far harder to heal from that

than from the violence

or sticks and stones that hurt the body.

Let me take this even further.

The philosophers of the 20th century

very hopefully helped us understand

that all of our life is mediated through words.

The power of words,

it's so deep.

All of life is mediated to us through words.

You don't,

when you walk into St. Columbus,

this building on a Sunday morning,

you don't just see metal and cloth.

You see chairs

and you don't even have to think about it.

You don't come into this building

and see data of different bits

and atoms and particles of wood.

No,

you see a church,

you see a building,

you see beauty.

You interpret it immediately.

You don't have to be told.

You know what you see,

right?

Because all of our experience

is mediated through words.

God has given us this gift of language

by which we interpret all reality.

We never see anything

or think anything

outside of the vehicle

and medium of language.

The power of speech,

it's the very thing

by which we interpret

all of our reality

and it's got great power

to give life

or to take it away.

We possess something more powerful

with more potential

to give life

and more danger

than we ever think about

in our daily ability

to communicate.

Now,

he gives us

the very clear diagnosis.

I already mentioned it

in verse 8.

Nobody can tame the tongue.

He says it in verse 2.

If you look back with me

at verse 2

before we move on

to the final point,

we all stumble in many ways

and if anyone

does not stumble

in what they say,

it's a perfect person.

So he says,

we all stumble

in so many ways

and if you are able

to be a perfect speaker,

you would therefore

be a perfect human being.

You see,

speech is the final frontier.

It's the great test

of sin

and he's given us

such a clear diagnosis.

Is there anybody here today

who has not wounded

another with their words?

Is there anybody here today

who has not flattered

in order to receive it back?

Is there anybody here today

who doesn't slip in

the humble brag

at the end

of their conversations,

trying to turn

the conversation back?

Do any of us here

not struggle

with sinful speech?

And James says,

no, no, not one.

There is none righteous.

Paul's simple idea.

There's none righteous.

No, not one.

We are broken speakers.

We speak sin,

sins of speech

all the time.

That's his clear diagnosis

and what he calls,

what he says about

that diagnosis

is so clear in verse 6.

He calls

our sinful speech

hellfire.

So the word

in verse 6,

the tongue is a fire,

a world of unrighteousness.

The tongue is set

among our members,

standing the whole body,

setting on fire

the entire course of life

and set on fire

by hell.

That's the word

Gehenna

that Jesus uses

in the gospel.

He says,

our speech

is so serpent-like

it's been set on fire

by Gehenna.

Now what does he mean

by that?

Gehenna,

hell,

it was a physical place

in Jerusalem.

It was a dump

outside the city

and Jesus uses it

metaphorically

to point to

ultimate destruction

and in that dump

there would be

fires burning

perpetually

to get rid

of all the rubbish

that is heaped

up in the city.

It stinks.

It's nasty.

It's vile.

And he's saying

from the time

of Genesis 3

our sinful speech

has been set on fire

so that we spit out

words like rubbish heaps.

Our tongues are on fire

in the sense that

it's like refuse burning

quite often,

all the time.

He's saying

that's what's going on

in the human heart

and it's coming out

in our disordered speech.

He's so serious about it.

That's why

in verse 1 and 2

he says

not many of you

should become teachers.

He means in the church

because you will be judged

for your speech.

And so if speech

has such power,

such ability,

such potential,

it is a dangerous thing

he's saying

to get up front

and preach.

And so he's talking

to people like me

and others.

He's saying

if you are speaking

far more

and you have the power

to get people

to listen to you,

your speech

has far more power

to bring life,

but yes,

but to also bring death.

And so it's a great warning

about the reality

of speech

that comes out

of the human heart.

John Webster

was a late theologian

in St. Andrews

who died a few years ago.

His son actually

used to be a member

of this church.

And John Webster

throughout his career

in theology

wrote on speech

quite often.

And he wrote

a couple famous articles

that are all titled

The Sins of Speech

in different publications.

Let me summarize

to you what he says

about the power

of our speech

and your speech.

He says that one

of the realities

of what makes

our language

so powerful

is what he calls

its irrevocability.

Irrevocability.

The inability

to bring it back

once it's spoken.

So this is what he says.

Words have a generative

power that cannot

be undone.

They set up meaning

in the world

a real relation

between a speaker

and a hearer

that cannot be erased.

You can recant

your words.

You can apologize

for your words.

You can repair

based on what you've said

but you cannot unsay

what you've said.

And this is what he writes.

The person who called you

stupid that day

is always the person

who called you stupid

that day.

That room is always

the room where that person

called you that.

And here is the asymmetry

that makes this

so devastating.

It takes years

to build a reputation.

It takes seconds

to ruin someone's reputation.

You can destroy

a person

with a single sentence

in only a moment.

The irrevocability

of words.

James calls it

hellfire.

You'll remember

last semester

we worked through

the book of Daniel.

And in Daniel chapter 4

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

there's this great moment

that illustrates

this truth.

And it's

when King Nebuchadnezzar

the great king

the mighty king

of Babylon

he walks out

onto his balcony

and he looks out

at the greatest empire

the world has ever seen

the hanging gardens

of Babylon

in fact

he was probably

looking at

and he says this

is this not Babylon

the great

which I myself

have built

as a royal residence

by my mighty power

for the glory

of my majesty.

And then the text

says this

while the words

were still

in his mouth

he had barely

breathed them out.

While the words

were still in his mouth

the sound still

in the air

he was driven

from human society

to live as a beast

he ate grass

like an ox

and he grew feathers

like a bird.

Now what do we mean

Nebuchadnezzar

is the great illustration

that we were made

to be speakers

that give life

but the more

and more

we speak words

of hellfire

we destroy

with our words

the more and more

we become beast-like.

In other words

we're being told here

that beastly speech

dehumanizes us.

Secondly, finally

why?

The source

of the power

of speech.

Now the question

that James then

deals with

at the end

verse 9 to 12

is why have we

come to possess

such great power?

And so if you look

down at 9 to 12

especially 9

he says

with it

we bless our Lord

and Father

with our speech

and with it

we curse people

who are made

in the likeness

of God.

He is taking us

again back

to Genesis 1

with our words

we bless God

we worship God

with our words

we curse people

and then he said

who were made

in the likeness

of God.

So there he's

quoting from

Genesis 1 26

where we learn

that every single

person has been

made in the image

of God

and the likeness

of God

and he's thinking

along the lens

the logic of

Genesis 1 to 3

and he's saying

that you were made

to basically do

two things

with your speech

one bless God

worship God

and bless people

to praise

to affirm

to encourage

creatures

people

other people

made in the likeness

of God

but he says

what we actually do

is we will

come to church

and he says

bless God

worship God

and then turn

and curse people

gossip about them

speak poorly of them

behind their backs

and then he goes on

and gives you

more images

can salt water

and fresh water

come from the same source

can a fig tree

produce grapes

and what is he doing

he's saying

no

it's contradictory

contradictory

what's contradictory

that you were made

in the image of God

to be a speaker

like God

and so we'll worship

God with our lips

but then gossip

about people

behind their back

and he's saying

that is salt water

and fresh water

coming out of the same source

and it can't work

you can't be a fig tree

producing grapes

and figs at the same time

and he's saying

we are walking

contradictions

because of our sin

that we will worship

yet curse people

simultaneously

and he's pointing us

to this

where do we get

such power

where does

what is the ground

of the power

of human speech

human words

and it's this

we were made

like God

we were made

in his image

we were made

as speakers

and God

is a speaker

he's the divine

communicator

God

we see from Genesis 1

is the great speaker

so how does he create

he says

let there be light

he speaks words

and the world

comes about

and so

he's saying

the great power

of our speech

comes from the fact

that God

is the divine speaker

the ultimate speaker

and he has given us

the gift

of being like him

and so

the more and more

we use our words

to encourage

to build people up

to affirm

to tell people

that we love them

to speak the truth

and love

in the right context

the more and more

we are imaging God

into the world

the more and more

we are being like God

and becoming like God

the more and more

we use words

to defame

destroy

gossip

insult

rage

the less and less

we are like God

and the less and less

we image God

we

why

the story of Nebuchadnezzar

becoming a beast

why did that happen to him

he's a walking illustration

in history

of using the tongue

the great instrument

the greatest

clearest

reality

of what it means

to be made in God's image

the more we use it beastly

the more beast like

we become

and so

we were made to be

speakers like God

is what we're being told

how does God give life

now you come

today to church

you're listening

maybe

to a sermon right now

how does God give life

we're told in the Bible

that God gives life

in three ways

and they're all

through

word

so the Bible says

that God gives life

through

the word preached

through the word

of the gospel

being told

the word

of the gospel

being told

you see

we take life away

with our words

with disordered hearts

but God reorders

through the word

through the word preached

through the word taught

that's called

the preached word

the second way

is through the

inscripturated word

the Bible

the threefold form

of the word

the preached word

the inscripturated word

that God gives life

through the words

of the Bible

by the Holy Spirit

and the third

and the most ultimate

form of the word

the eternal word himself

so don't miss that

when Jesus Christ

came to earth

what was he called

the word

made flesh

God's speech

made visible

into this world

Jesus Christ

is divine speech

he is the speech

of God the Father

sent into this world

see God

what does

James say

he says

no human

can tame the tongue

but he

leaves one thing

silent

no human

can tame the tongue

but God can

so God

can fix our speech

God can heal

our speech

God can forgive

our speech

God can reorder

our speech

and he does it

through the preached word

the inscripturated word

but ultimately

through the eternal word

himself

Jesus Christ

now that means that

when Jesus came

into this world

in the incarnation

that was a pronouncement

of verdict

over us human beings

as speakers

Jesus Christ

was born

the son of God

the word

became human

to first pronounce

a verdict

over our sinful speech

and you can hear that

in Matthew 12

36

and this is a

devastating moment

in the gospels

he says

I tell you

on the day of judgment

people will give account

for every careless word

they have ever spoken

for by your words

you will be justified

and by your words

you will be condemned

I don't know

if you've ever had

the experience

of sending a text message

I know you've had

that experience

sending a text message

to a friend

and you accidentally

sent it to the person

you were talking about

the few times

that that's happened

in our lives

that is one of the most

devastating moments

talk about the

irrevocability

of words

there's nothing

you want more

than to be able

to dive into

the digital world

and grab that text

and bring it back

but you can't

and typically

that does often

produce a great wound

between you

and whoever

you sent that message to

do you have

sins of speech

in your life

in your background

in your past

Jesus Christ comes

in the incarnation

in his very presence

is a verdict

that we are not

the speakers

God made us to be

have we created wounds

have we never asked

for forgiveness

for something we said

at that time

to that person

or are we coming today

carrying those wounds

because of things

that people have said

to us

undoubtedly

everyone in this room

will have a wound

that someone has said

to them at one time

that they've never

really gotten past

we are wounders

and wounded people

when it comes to

words

and Jesus comes

and says

you will be judged

for every careless word

you ever spoke

how

and there's one

of two ways

either to stand

before God

and have an account

of every careless word

truly taken

set out loud

like a tape recorder

being replayed

at the end of your life

or another way

and that's this

that Jesus Christ

the word himself

the divine speech

of God

who came in the middle

of history

he was treated

as less than human

because of our

dehumanizing speech

now he says

he

Isaiah 53

tells us

he was one

from whom

we had to turn

our faces away

when he was on the cross

he became beastly

not because he deserved it

but because we do

Jesus Christ

the word of God

who had total fellowship

with his father

who had never heard

a single moment

of silence

from his father

at the cross

he said

my God

my God

why are you silent

why have you forsaken me

he heard divine silence

he heard

the sound of silence

the sound of hell itself

in that moment

because of our

evil speech

Jesus Christ

was bitten

by that ultimate serpent

the great venom

the cup of poison

that our speech

has poured

and filled

he drank it for us

see

when he says

in Matthew 12

on that day

you will be judged

for every careless word

you can be judged

in him

for every careless word

you've ever spoken

meaning

you can be forgiven today

for every word

that should have never

been said

that you said

I know

I need that

and I think

every single one

of us needs it

to be forgiven

by Jesus Christ

for every single

careless word

we've ever spoken

look that's not all

that's not all

I'll finish with this

the resurrection

of Jesus

says even more

than that

the cross

says you can be

forgiven

for every careless

word you've ever spoken

but the resurrection

what does it say

in the moment

of the resurrection

Jesus Christ

is vindicated

when he comes

out of the grave

God the father

says this is

my beloved son

with whom I'm

well pleased

he cannot stay dead

he is my son

and when you're

with him

when you are

walking with him

he says the very

same thing to you

it's not just that

you need words

of forgiveness

many of us today

especially

also need

words of healing

because maybe

we've never been

told in the right

ways that we're loved

maybe we've never

been affirmed

maybe we went

through a childhood

and didn't get

what we needed

and you see

the gospel says

that in the resurrection

when you're with

Jesus

God the father

looks to you

and says

you are my

beloved son

you are my

beloved daughter

I can heal

the wounds

from all the

sinful speech

you've ever

received

today

in this moment

you've got to see

that your words

are on record

before the throne

of God above

that they are

irrevocable

that we will be

judged for them

but when you

turn to Christ

those words

have been judged

past present

and future

in Jesus

judgment

and that means

you're forgiven

you can be healed

you can be restored

there's a judge

there is a judge

in the middle

of history

who took

your judgment

who took

the mockery

who took

the screams

who took

the cries

who took

us shouting

crucify him

we used our

words

to crucify

him

so that he

could say

to you today

you are my

beloved

you are forgiven

your words

can be healed

let me ask you

as we finish

what sins

of speech

do you need

to mortify

in your life

based on the gospel

based on the fact

that you really

can be forgiven

and your speech

can be healed

the wounds

can be healed

what sins

of speech

this week

before we come

back to it again

do you need

to mortify

is it lies

gossip

flattery

defamation

blasphemy

ridicule

omission

false promises

manipulation

intimidation

cruelty

the silent

treatment

self-deprecation

boasting

that's just a short

list of the many

and we'll look

at more next time

but what sins

of speech

do we need

to mortify

what

who

do we need

to ask forgiveness

of

who do we need

to extend

forgiveness

with our words

to

in what way

can we become

people who

give life

with our speech

encourage

tell people

that we love

them

give them

affirmation

come today

to god

as we pray

now

in prayer

and repent

of your sins

of speech

this week

turn to the

lord again

know that

jesus christ

really has

dealt with

all of it

and provides

every resource

we need

to heal

and to grow

as speakers

let us pray

father

we do come

now

and take up

just that

prayer

we are

sinners

that set

hellfire

with our

speech

quite often

and so

we confess

to you

even this

week

all the

ways

we have

spoken

carelessly

we have

many of us

will have

struggled

in different

ways

we struggle

with gossip

we have

struggled

with defamation

we have

struggled

with lies

small lies

maybe big

lies

lord maybe

somebody here

today is living

through a long

lie

some of us

come

having never

asked forgiveness

today for

something we said

that really hurt

another

the list

feels pretty

endless

we come today

lord and bow

our hearts

before you

and look

again to

our savior

jesus christ

the man

who died

on the cross

who took

the poison

of the cup

of our

bitter speech

so that we

might hear

the pronouncement

beloved son

beloved daughter

so lord

we

there are people

in this room

today who

have never

heard that

before

we need

to hear

it

come lord

jesus

give us

new hearts

change us

heal us

fix the

wounds we've

created

and teach us

to be new

speakers

lord may we

be people

who are

growing

into

speakers

who use

our words

as instruments

of life

and we pray

all this

now

in jesus

name

amen