I’ve always found it really fascinating just how much power our words have over our lives.
You know what I’m talking about.
The words that you say will determine the course of your life.
That is a pretty much ironclad law of the universe.
I love the way Proverbs 18:20–21 puts it:
“A man’s stomach is filled with the fruit of his mouth.
With the harvest of his lips he is satisfied.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue;
those who love it will eat its fruit.”—Proverbs 18:20–21, WEB
It says your words will either cause you to sink or enable you to swim.
Your words will either make things go smoothly or make things so much harder for you.
Your words will either cause you to be surrounded by friends and people who love you or alone and isolated with no one you can count on.
Your words will either take you to greater heights and greater heights and greater heights, or they will cause your career to come crashing down because you alienated all the wrong people.
Your words will either build a close-knit and loving relationship with your kids that lasts through adulthood, or they will cause them to pack up their things and move as far as they possibly can away from you and avoid you for the rest of their lives.
Your words will either turn your marriage into a safe haven that is driven by trust and respect and affection and safety, or it will turn into a battleground that is destined to eventually explode.
That is the power that your words have.
Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?
You’re thinking of the relationships that were smashed against the rocks of your inability to control what you said to them and about them.
You’re thinking of all the jobs you lost because you physically could not stop yourself from mouthing off to your supervisors.
You’re thinking of the kids who don’t talk to you anymore.
You’re thinking of the friendships you’ve destroyed.
You’re thinking of the last six churches you had to leave because you just kept pissing everybody off and pushing them over the edge.
And you’ve been here for like six months, and you wonder if this time is going to be the same as all the other times.
That is the power that your tongue holds.
Whether you speak constructively or destructively will determine almost everything about the direction your life takes.
And because that is true, the Proverbs say more about controlling your tongue than they do about almost any other issue.
Specifically, it says that speaking carelessly will destroy your life in at least four ways.
1. When You Speak Carelessly, You Harm Yourself
You know what I’m talking about.
When you speak destructively, you harm yourself.
It says:
“A fool’s lips come into strife,
and his mouth invites beatings.”—Proverbs 18:6, WEB
It says:
“An evil man is trapped by sinfulness of lips,
but the righteous shall come out of trouble.”—Proverbs 12:13, WEB
How many opportunities have you lost because of the careless words that you spoke?
How many jobs have you lost?
How many people have you pushed away?
You need to be honest with yourself right now.
Some of us have never been honest with ourselves in our entire lives.
Some of us have convinced ourselves that all of our problems are somebody else’s fault.
That all of our problems come from other people mistreating us, or other people oppressing us, or other people being unfair to us.
And that’s true in some situations.
I’m not going to deny that.
But some of us have told ourselves that the reason we’ve been stuck for so long is because nobody will give us a chance, nobody will treat us fairly.
When the reality is that we keep sabotaging ourselves by the words that we speak.
And if that’s you, I pray that today is the day that you will wake up to that.
That you’ll be honest with yourself about that.
And that you will begin the process of changing your patterns so that you can change your life.
Because the Lord did not create you to shoot yourself in the foot every step of the way.
That’s number one.
When you build a life where your pattern is that you speak carelessly and destructively, the first person you harm is yourself.
2. When You Speak Carelessly, You Harm Others
But at exactly the same time, when you speak carelessly, you harm others.
Proverbs 11:9 says:
“With his mouth the godless man destroys his neighbor,
but the righteous will be delivered through knowledge.”—Proverbs 11:9, WEB
And here’s something very important we have to understand.
When the Proverbs talk about the godless man, it is not talking about an atheist.
It’s not talking about what you believe.
It’s talking about how you live.
There was no such thing as atheism during the period when the Bible was written.
A godless man is someone who lives as if there is no God.
A godless person is someone who does not live in a way that reflects the Lord and glorifies the Lord.
A person who speaks carelessly and destructively is a person who is living godlessly.
Because when you speak carelessly, you harm your neighbors.
Proverbs 12:18 says:
“There is one who speaks rashly like the piercing of a sword,
but the tongue of the wise heals.”—Proverbs 12:18, WEB
I know you’ve seen this.
You say that careless thing, and you see the way it wounds your spouse.
You see the way it wounds your friend.
In our fallen and sinful nature, there is something in us that sometimes just wants to hurt other people.
You know what I’m talking about.
There’s something in us that gets a dopamine rush from knocking other people down a peg.
We say things to them that we know are going to rob them of their confidence.
Are going to make them feel less than.
It’s like a sword thrust.
Proverbs 15:4 says:
“A gentle tongue is a tree of life,
but deceit in it crushes the spirit.”—Proverbs 15:4, WEB
I have broken other people’s spirits by the way that I’ve spoken to them.
Sometimes it was on purpose.
Sometimes it was on accident.
I allowed the cruelest parts of myself to take over.
Or I allowed the most bitter parts of myself to rule.
And as a result, I would say things that I didn’t really mean, that weren’t really true, but that I could never take back.
When we are careless with our words, we harm other people.
That’s number two.
3. When You Speak Carelessly, You Destroy Relationships
But more than that, number three: You destroy relationships.
You know what I’m talking about?
When you speak destructively, you destroy relationships.
Proverbs 16:28 says:
“A perverse man stirs up strife.
A whisperer separates close friends.”—Proverbs 16:28, WEB
This is talking about multiple things at the same time.
Number one, it’s talking about a gossiper.
Ever had somebody lie about you?
Spread a rumor about you?
Completely misunderstand something they overheard you saying, and then go spread it around?
Ever have friendships that came to an end because of the thing somebody else said about you?
Gossip is a destructive form of speech.
At exactly the same time, when we are careless with our words, we can destroy our own relationships, can’t we?
No gossip necessary.
You get angry.
You start pushing each other’s buttons.
And under the wrong circumstances, it’s over.
There’s no undoing the stuff you said when you had too much to drink.
You got all in your head.
You got paranoid or insecure.
You’ve been holding on to something for a long time that you should have dealt with when you were level-headed and sober and calm.
And you just start laying into them.
And maybe they forgive you the first time.
Maybe they forgive you the second time.
Maybe they forgive you the twenty-second time.
But at a certain point, unless you have a shrinking violet as your friend or your spouse or your child, eventually they lose the ability to let it go any longer.
Eventually, you lay into them one too many times.
Eventually, you kill the relationship with your own bare hands.
You kill it with your tongue.
That’s number three.
4. When You Speak Carelessly, You Stir Up Division
And number four, when you speak carelessly, you stir up division.
Careless words stir up division.
Proverbs 26:20 says:
“For lack of wood the fire goes out.
Where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.”—Proverbs 26:20, WEB
Why is our country the way it is right now?
It’s because our politicians are using their speech in destructive ways.
The people running our media use the power of their words in destructive ways.
The people who run our education systems are using their words in destructive ways.
The people who run so many of our churches are jumping on the bandwagon and using their words in destructive ways.
We’ve been taught to hate our neighbors.
We’ve been taught to be scared of our neighbors.
We’ve been taught to resent our neighbors.
We’ve been taught to see people who have like ten beliefs that are sort of different than ours as our enemies.
We’ve been taught to see ourselves as soldiers in an all-or-nothing battle.
We’ve been taught to treat really simple issues like whether to build a community swimming pool, or whether to build a homeless shelter, or whether to create a social district in downtown Louisburg, as a full-on civil war.
The people in control of all these different things have chosen to use their platforms and their powers to stir up as much division as possible.
And the result is that we’re falling apart at the seams, aren’t we?
The way that we use our words literally determines the course of our lives, the course of our communities, the course of our countries.
It will determine the course of our church.
If we decide to be divisive about every single disagreement, it will tear the church apart.
If we decide to hold on to grudges rather than meeting together and talking out our issues, it will kill our church from the neck down.
This is the overwhelming destructive power of careless, malignant speech.
Our Words Flow Out from Our Hearts
But the important thing that we need to understand is that our words are actually not about our words.
If we have a problem with our words, what we actually have is a problem with our heart.
If there’s a problem with the words coming out of our mouth, there is actually a problem way further upstream.
There’s a problem in our spirit.
Because our words flow out from our heart.
We need to ask the question: Why do we speak destructively?
What causes us to use our words in a way that harms us and destroys relationships and stirs up division and sabotages our lives?
It’s actually unbelievably simple.
We speak destructively when we are driven by our sinful nature.
God’s Word tells us that God created us good.
He created us perfect.
But that when we rebelled against him in the garden—remember the story about the talking snake and the forbidden fruit—when we rebelled against him and took the fruit, it broke the world.
It broke everything.
It broke us.
We are driven to want the wrong things.
We are driven to value the wrong things.
We are driven to pursue the wrong things.
We are driven to use people and love things, rather than loving people and using things.
We are driven to chase after self-destructive things that harm us rather than help us.
Our hearts do not work the way they were created to.
And as a result, we are driven by a pretty long list of things that can fundamentally sabotage our lives.
Foolishness
Number one is foolishness.
Proverbs 18:2 says:
“A fool has no delight in understanding,
but only in revealing his own opinion.”—Proverbs 18:2, WEB
We speak destructively when we are driven by that desire—to be in control without understanding, to be in power without understanding.
We don’t actually care about other people’s perspectives.
We just want to push our perspective on everybody else.
We’re not willing to listen.
We just want to be the one everybody else has to listen to.
There’s a word for that in Scripture.
It’s foolishness.
That’s number one.
Pride and Arrogance
Number two is pride and arrogance.
Proverbs 27:2 says:
“Let another man praise you,
and not your own mouth;
a stranger,
and not your own lips.”—Proverbs 27:2, WEB
We are driven to speak destructively and carelessly by our fallen desire to be celebrated.
To be praised.
To be worshiped.
If we’re honest, so many of us have this inborn desire to be exalted by other people.
We want other people to treat us like authorities.
We want other people to treat us like kings.
We want other people just to sit down, shut up, and do what we say.
You know what I’m talking about.
We don’t want to be equals with other people.
We want to be above other people.
We want to be over other people.
We want to be treated as more important than other people.
And anytime someone else disrupts our pursuit of that, we fly off the handle.
For some of us, we think we have a problem with our words.
But what we actually have is a problem with our pride.
That’s number two.
Rage
Number three is rage.
Proverbs 29:11 says:
“A fool vents all of his anger,
but a wise man brings himself under control.”—Proverbs 29:11, WEB
This is what I struggle with.
This is a point of weakness for me.
So many of us have destroyed relationships and sabotaged our own lives because we are constantly giving full vent to our rage.
To our disdain.
Frankly, to our hatred.
Look, I am very easily stirred up into a rage.
I am very easily drawn into contempt.
I am in anger management therapy right now.
Because my anger has driven so much of my life.
My anger has robbed me of so many of the best things in life.
My anger has destroyed so many of my friendships.
My anger has put a strain on so many of my relationships.
My anger has been a trap that I have fallen into in so many ways.
Some of you in this audience have been on the wrong end of me snapping at you in an ungodly way.
So many of you have been on the wrong end of me losing my temper.
Everyone who has ever served on the deacon board.
Everyone who has ever been in a committee meeting with me probably has at least one story they can point to.
And my natural tendency is to justify it.
To say, “Oh, if people don’t want me to snap at them, they shouldn’t do things that make me mad.”
But no, that’s not true.
It is my responsibility to control my anger.
And listen.
If you are like me, you need to hear this.
It is your responsibility to process your anger, control your anger, and handle it in a wise and godly and gentle way.
It is not your spouse’s responsibility to figure out how to not make you angry.
It is not your kids’ responsibility to figure out how to not make you angry.
It is your responsibility to stop being a fool.
It is your responsibility to control your angry, rage-driven words so that you don’t destroy your life.
That’s number three.
A Desire for Control
Number four is a desire for control.
Proverbs 26:28 says:
“A lying tongue hates those it hurts;
and a flattering mouth works ruin.”—Proverbs 26:28, WEB
Proverbs 19:5 says:
“A false witness shall not be unpunished.
He who pours out lies shall not go free.”—Proverbs 19:5, WEB
Some of us speak destructively because we have this compulsive desire to control other people.
And the tool we use to control them is manipulation.
The tool we use is dishonesty.
I’ve had so many people come up to me and say, “Oh, you know, I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how they don’t like this thing and how it needs to change and stuff like that. I just wanted to let you know.”
So many of us sleepwalk into manipulating the people in our lives to get what we want.
Here’s the thing: Manipulation kills connection.
You cannot truly connect with somebody you are trying to control.
Listen.
God doesn’t control us.
God gives us the freedom to choose what we do.
If God wasn’t willing to control you and me, how could you possibly think you could control someone else?
Your desire for control will drive you to destroy all of your relationships.
That’s number four.
And that’s just four examples, but by this point, the picture should be clear: When we use our words in destructive ways, it creates the kind of shrapnel that sabotages every good thing in our life.
That is the awful, destructive power that our words have.
Our Words Can Be Life-Giving Instead of Destructive
But it does not have to be this way.
Because at exactly the same time, God’s Word tells us that when we speak from a place of wisdom, our words can be life-giving instead of destructive.
When we speak from a place of peace, our words can be transforming instead of soul-crushing.
When we speak from a place of peace, our words can be joy-inducing rather than spirit-killing.
It says wise, godly, mature speech protects us from harm.
Wise, godly, mature speech raises others up.
Wise, godly, mature speech heals conflict instead of stirring it up.
Wise, godly, mature speech normalizes truth in a world filled with lies.
Wise, godly, mature speech steers other people toward wisdom.
And wise, godly, mature speech brings peace to our souls.
The gloriously good news that God’s Word has for us this morning is that we do not have to be captive to this inner brokenness that has driven us to destroy our lives, our careers, our relationships, our futures.
It says you can change your words.
You can change how you speak.
And it says the way to do that is to change your heart.
And so the takeaway that we want to take away this morning is unbelievably simple.
We want to ask the Lord to change our words by changing our hearts.
We want to ask the Lord to change our speech by changing our hearts.
Specifically, we want to ask Him to change our hearts in three ways.
1. Ask the Lord to Make Love and Compassion Drive the Way You Speak
Proverbs 17:9 says:
“He who covers an offense promotes love;
but he who repeats a matter separates best friends.”—Proverbs 17:9, WEB
It says when your speech is driven by love, when your speech is driven by compassion, when your speech is driven by affection, when your speech is driven by godly concern for other people’s well-being, it will cause you to do things like kill gossip the moment it comes to you.
It’ll cause you to do things like let offenses go rather than blowing up at people when they upset you.
It’ll drive you not to talk badly about other people behind their back or lay into them furiously to their face.
Instead, it’ll drive you to go and lovingly, gently, patiently confront them and work it out.
That’s number one.
2. Ask the Lord to Make Humility Drive the Way You Speak
Proverbs 13:1 says:
“A wise son listens to his father’s instruction,
but a scoffer doesn’t listen to rebuke.”—Proverbs 13:1, WEB
Proverbs 15:28 says:
“The heart of the righteous weighs answers,
but the mouth of the wicked gushes out evil.”—Proverbs 15:28, WEB
It says that when your speech is driven by humbleness—when it’s driven by a mindset that says, “I don’t know everything. I don’t understand everything. I might be misunderstanding the situation. I might be misinterpreting what other people said. I might be wrong. I might be the one who needs to repent. I might be on the wrong side of this argument”—when your heart is driven by that kind of humility that makes you ponder what you should say, ponder how you should respond, contemplate how you should handle this situation, try to think about the other person’s perspective, the other person’s side of things, to see them as another human being to work things out with, rather than an enemy to be vanquished, when your words are driven by that mindset, it’ll fundamentally change how you respond to almost everything, won’t it?
There is a distinct possibility that humility might have saved your marriage.
There is a distinct possibility that humility might have stopped your kid from avoiding you and screening all of your calls.
There’s a possibility that humility might have gotten you that promotion, instead of being stuck in an entry-level position even though you’ve been with the company for 17 years.
Humility fundamentally changes the way you think, which changes the way you speak.
That’s number two.
3. Ask the Lord to Make Calm the Driving Force Behind the Way You Speak
Proverbs 17:27 says:
“He who spares his words has knowledge.
He who is even tempered is a man of understanding.”—Proverbs 17:27, WEB
It says there are people who are hot-tempered and there are people who are cool-spirited.
God’s Word says, ask the Lord to change your heart and to fill you with a calm, a collectiveness that is not reactive, that is not hyper-vigilant, that is not constantly snapping, that isn’t dependent on everything going exactly the way you want it to in order to be happy.
Because that calm will fundamentally transform the way you respond to everything.
That’s number three.
Ask the Lord to Change Your Heart
Listen.
Your relationships can be saved.
They are not doomed.
It is not over.
All is not lost.
You can put back together all the things you’ve sabotaged and destroyed.
The Lord wants to heal the sick places in your life.
Your Father in Heaven wants to fix the broken places in your life.
But look.
He’s not going to do it by magic.
He’s not going to snap His fingers and make everything okay.
You broke this.
And that means that He’s going to fix this through you.
That means that what you need to do is let Him.
Stop resisting Him.
Stop holding on to the things that got you here in the first place.
Let go of your foolishness.
Let go of your pridefulness and your arrogance.
Let go of your rage, your contempt, your hatred.
Let go of your desire for control, your desire to manipulate, your willingness to use others.
And let Him replace all of these things with love and compassion, with humbleness and with calm collectiveness.
Ask the Lord to change your heart in a way that will change your mindset.
In a way that will fundamentally change your words.
Mount Zion Baptist Church - Louisburg, NC 
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