Freedom From Words That Kill
Freedom From... prt. 3
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
September 13, 2009
I want to talk to you about words this morning. Words are powerful. It is through words that we communicate our desires for ourselves and others and we pursue what we want in the world. It is through words that we express love and other creative energies. It is through words that we express bitterness and other destructive energies. Words are a vehicle for the human heart. So we're going to spend some time talking about words, but before that I'd like to introduce you to ten words that don't exist but probably should.
10 WORDS THAT DON'T EXIST, BUT SHOULD
1. AQUADEXTROUS
(ak wa deks'trus) adj. Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub tap on and off with your toes.
2. CARPERPETUATION
(kar'pur pet u a shun) n. The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or a piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
3. DISCONFECT
(dis kon fekt') v. To sterilize the piece of confection (lolly) you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, assuming this will somehow 'remove' all the germs.
4. ELBONICS
(el bon'iks) n. The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie theater.
5. FRUST
(frust) n. The small line of debris that refuses to be swept onto the dust pan and keeps backing a person across the room until he finally decides to give up and sweep it under the rug.
6. LACTOMANGULATION
(lak' to man gyu lay' shun) n. Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk container so badly that one has to resort to the 'illegal' side.
7. PEPPIER'
(peph ee ay') n. The waiter at a fancy restaurant whose sole purpose seems to be walking around asking diners if they want fresh ground pepper.
8. PHONESIA (fo nee' zhuh) n. The affliction of dialing a phone number and forgetting who you were calling just as they answer.
9. PUPKUS
(pup'kus) n. The moist residue left on a window after a dog presses its nose to it.
10. TELECRASTINATION
(tel e kras tin ay' shun) n. The act of always letting the phone ring at least twice before you pick it up, even when you're only six inches away.
Just a little fun with words there. Anybody ever been on the receiving end of words that weren't so fun? Anybody ever dish them out? We've been talking about anger the last two weeks and the next logical place to go after dealing with anger (by the way, I hope you ARE dealing with your anger) is to talk about words. Because there's a progression that happens with anger isn't there? You feel angry, therefore you do angry things (slam doors, throw stuff around, pout, etc.), and you say angry words. Angry words are words that kill. They kill not only the person they are said to/about, but also the one who says them.
But it's not just angry words that kill. Because perhaps even more often than words are used to hurt, they are used to manipulate. These are not angry words, they are empty words. Empty words also are words that kill. I will remind you here, as I promised I would do in each of these messages back in week 1, that when we use words that kill, whether they are angry or empty, we do so independently from God. God is not in our words of anger, nor is God in words that attempt to manipulate other people and bend them to our will, for the satisfaction of our own ego.
Colossians 4:6 (MSG)
6 Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out.
Christians are people (or at least are supposed to be people) who are allowing their every thought, attitude, action, and word to be informed, shaped, and guided by the Spirit of Jesus. And yet if you are a gossipy person, if you enjoy the rumor mill, and saying and hearing bad things about others, there's probably no place you would be happier than in most churches in America. When it comes to speech, churches are among the filthiest places you can be. But we are filthy in clean ways. We may not be speaking "F this and F that and F you." No, it's wrong to swear, so we leave the F-words out of our filthy, gossipy talk.
Anger and gossip feed the ego. Anger feeds the ego's (the flesh's) need to be heard and to be right at any cost, to prop itself up and put others in their place. Gossip feeds the ego's need to feel important, and if I know something about someone then it will make me look important if I say it. Gossip also feeds the ego's need to get a laugh from others and be the center of attention and thought well of. It also feeds the ego's need to have power. When we know something other's don't, we have power. And when we choose to share a secret with someone, we are in a position of power, as we then have the keys to knowledge. Why did you hate it when you were a little kid and your parents said stuff like, "Time for B-E-D?" You hated it because you couldn't spell, and because you couldn't spell you therefore did not have access to the knowledge they had, and because of that they had power -- power to keep you from knowing something.
There's a way in which your ego is still four years old (many ways, in fact). If somebody else knows something, you automatically want to know. Being left out of the circle of knowledge activates your ego -- your need to be included and thought well enough of to be in the inner circle. Remember when you were a little kid and you'd go around saying, "I've got a secret." Why did you do that? Because it made people want to know what the secret was. Knowing a secret gives you knowledge (and thus power). I've got a secret. I know and you don't. Na, na, na, boo-boo. Many of us are STILL that little kid. "I've got a secret. I KNOW why so and so's marriage didn't work. I KNOW why that couple stopped attending church. I KNOW there's a problem between so and so and the church, and I am pretty sure I know what the problem is. I know why Jon got fired. I know why Lisa is so insecure. I know and you don't. Now you MIGHT know, but only if I choose to tell you. Na, na, na, boo-boo.
Do many of your deepest regrets revolve around words? Do you use words to get your way, to get people to do what you want them to do? Do you speak words in anger in order to hurt people, or push your will or point of view on them? Do you use words to enhance your image among others as someone who is "in the know?"
Words tap deeply into who we are, and they are revealing of us at deep levels. Jesus said,
Matthew 12:34 (NIV)
34 ...out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.
In other words, our words reflect what is inside of us. Our words are the overflow of our hearts. Trashy words, trashy heart. Manipulative words, heart set on manipulation. Honest words, honest heart. Angry words, angry heart. Arrogant words, arrogant heart. Cynical words, cynical heart. What does the way you generally use words say about your heart?
____________________ words
____________________ heart
James 3:3-12 (MSG)
3 A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse.
4 A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds.
5 A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire.
6 A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.
7 This is scary: You can tame a tiger,
8 but you can't tame a tongue—it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer.
9 With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image.
10 Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can't go on.
11 A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it?
12 Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?
This text breaks down nicely into two sections. First is how powerful words are:
James 3:3-12 (MSG)
3 A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse.
4 A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds.
5 A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire.
6 A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.
7 This is scary: You can tame a tiger,
8 but you can't tame a tongue—it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer.
Why is free speech such a prized right in any country? Because words have power . A country cannot grant and protect free speech without granting and protecting the very power that could lead to the country's undoing. We are like Bam-Bam from the Flintstones with our words. We don't know our own strength. We constantly underestimate how powerful our words are, and how gentle we need to be, and how easy it is to hurt someone. A word can accomplish nearly anything, or destroy nearly anything. There are people sitting in this room right now who were destroyed by words spoken in anger, or in mockery, perhaps many, many years ago. But you've never been the same since. Because the words did the dirty work words do. They bored down in there and mixed their toxic nastiness into your soul (that may well have been a good deal purer beforehand), and left you broken down and perhaps in some ways nearly destroyed. Some of you were told you were worthless and now you believe it. Some of you were told you were ugly and have lived as an ugly person ever since. Some of you were gossiped about or lied to, and now you don't trust people. Some of you were guilt-tripped by words years ago and you've been on the trip ever since . Chances are you've probably brought others along with you, doing the same thing to them that was done to you. There are others who have risen to incredible heights because someone believed in them and told them so, who are secure in who they are because someone loved them and told them so, who have seen grace in action as they have heard the words, "I forgive you." Words can create us and they can destroy us.
A man named Martin Luther King Jr. once used words to do God's work, bringing healing and peace and reconciliation and justice. Another man named Adolph Hitler used words to do evil -- the work of Satan, if ever anyone did that work. Both of these movements began with words in the mouths of influential men who knew how to use words to make something happen. One used them to heal and, putting it mildly, the other to hurt. One of them made speeches and set the tempo for the drums of war and the machinery of murder. The other made speeches and set the tone for self-sacrifice and patient endurance, and the ultimate triumph of love. Neither could have done what he did without the power of words.
The next section of our text refers to how our words reveal the duplicity of the human heart.
James 3:9-12 (MSG)
9 With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image.
10 Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can't go on.
11 A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it?
12 Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?
Now I just finished talking about Martin Luther King Jr. and Hitler -- two men who used words in vastly different ways. But this text goes far beyond the idea of some people using words well and other people abusing them terribly. Because this text refers to how the same person will sometimes use words to heal and other times will use them to destroy. The easiest example I can think of is myself, and I do not say this with any measure of pride. Every week I stand up here and speak to you words that can bring healing and life. But there are times that before we have even gotten home, I have used words in ways that bring hurt to those I love. That's duplicity in the heart. I only have one heart, and what this text tells me is that I cannot say, "Please excuse me, Christy, I'm not myself today. When you're evaluating my character, please only listen to the healthy stuff I say in church, and kindly ignore the sick stuff I sometimes say at home." Doesn't work that way. The unfortunate fact is that they're BOTH me and I have to accept responsibility for them both. What's the difference? The difference is that when I speak to you on Sunday, everything I'm talking to you about is spiritual reality based on what happens as we move away from ego, away from the flesh, and learn to live increasingly in the light of God's perfect love -- where we are perfectly safe, perfectly secure, and perfectly significant. But none of us always lives in the light of God's perfect love. In fact the easiest thing in the world to do is come to church where we're surrounding ourselves with that love, bask in it, then shed it and take ego with us back into the car and back home and pretty much live out of ego the rest of the time.
But we don't only use words to hurt others. We also use words to manipulate them. I preached a whole sermon on this once - and it stands as one of my favorite sermons I have ever preached. For those listening right now to our podcast, that sermon is available on our website and is called Jesus on Asking. Jesus on Asking. If you have not heard it before I invite you to listen to it. In fact as we are talking about words today and next week, I hope some of you sitting here this morning might look it up and give it a listen because I was able to take much more time to get into much more detail about how we use words to manipulate.
But briefly, our egos are constantly seeking gratification. They want what they want when they want it. Now the reality of life in this world is that for every Barack Obama standing up making his speech in Congress, there's a Joe Wilson standing up and shouting You Lie! Opposition is just part of life, isn't it? Nobody gets a smooth ride. To stand for anything at all is to make yourself a target for those who stand for something different. That's the way the world is.
As your ego seeks gratification in various ways, it will butt directly up against other egos who are seeking gratification in ways that are opposite of yours. Or perhaps what you are doing to gratify your own ego causes another person's ego to NOT be gratified and the result is anger and strife between you and the one who opposes you. This is the state of the world, but I remind you that it is only the state of the world because, rather than casting off ego and depending on God to meet our needs, everyone is desperately grabbing for him or herself. So the result is that my trying to get what I want causes you not to get what you want and we are now enemies.
To deal with this we have made all kinds of arrangements. Contracts help make sure each person gets an equitable share of something. Rules establish guidelines that we agree to so that we can all get something we want.
But what about times when we really want something, and we are not sure others are going to let us have it? Perhaps I want your money, but I don't want to steal it from you, so I figure out a way to get you to give it to me. I decide to sell you something. The problem is that you don't want to buy what I'm selling. So do I say, "Okay, she doesn't want it - I'll move on?" No, instead I increase the volume and urgency of my sales pitch. I show you pictures of people who declined to buy my product and were killed in strange accidents in the next 24 hours. I urge, I coax, I wheedle, I beg -- anything to get you to do what I want you to do. If you give in and buy my product and give me your money I am happy. If you decide to keep your money for yourself, you are standing in the way of my plans to get your money and I am frustrated with you. The nerve of you!
We routinely violate the free will of other people by trying to impose our desires on them and "get them" to do things. As a pastor, college professor, and counselor, one of the questions I hear most often is "How can I get so and so to do such and such?" Do you understand the significance of that? One of the questions people ask me the most frequently is how they can get a person or group to do something other than what that person or group wants to do. Of course the way Jesus told us we do this is to simply ask.
John 16:24 (NIV)
24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive...
But asking is not enough. Asking allows for the possibility that someone could say no -- OH NO - then I might not get what I want!! Maybe I should ask loudly. Maybe I should ask hourly. Maybe I should ask with a hammer behind my back. Maybe I should ask in a way that is really TELLING. Maybe I should ask in a way that is unclear so they say yes without knowing what they've agreed to (think: every legal contract you've ever signed). Maybe I should cry when I ask so they feel too guilty to say no. Maybe I should threaten to kill myself when I ask.
Here we're dealing not with words that are necessarily angry, but words that are empty, words that are manipulative, that are not spoken in love for the good of the other person.
Colossians 4:6 (MSG)
6 Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out.
that have as their agenda the fulfilling of our ego needs as we are able to convince someone to do what we want them to do, even if that may not be in their best interest. This is why Jesus said:
Matthew 5:37 (NIV)
37 Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Jesus says, "Just be plain and straightforward with your speech. Don't glitz it up and make all these fancy promises and try to get people to trust you more than they do, and be all elaborate. Just say what you have to say." Hopefully by now I've shown you the kind of heart that does all these acrobatics trying to get people to do what we want, and you now understand what Jesus means when he says that any other way of speaking comes from the evil one.
Angry words. Empty words. Both are the kinds of words that kill. They are words that kill because they both are driven by the relentless need of the ego to get what it wants for itself. I want to be right. I want to hurt you because you hurt me. I want to get what I want from you. I want to be seen as the one in the know, the person to go to for all the good information on people. It's all messy and yucky. This is sin - it's stuff that separates us from God. It proceeds from a place that has nothing to do with God and God is not in it. Only as we live separated and cut off from him are we able to indulge in these things, and as we indulge in them we increasingly cut ourselves off from his gentle love. God has granted to us the very free will we often deny to others with our words. He has spoken words of patient love to us, while we speak words of angry harshness to others. Next week we'll look at ways of beginning to root out of ourselves the tendency to use words that kill.
