| Introduction The power of words is well-established. Words build up. Words destroy. It has been said that, "the pen is mightier than the sword" (Edward Bulwer-Lytton). The ultimate witness to the power of words is that the choice that God the Son made to reveal himself as the Word. The Bible is filled with statements regarding the power of the Word of God. Ps. 119 is one example of among many. So is Heb. 4:12. Heb. 4:12 – For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Bible has also a lot to say about the power that the words we speak have. We all have the heard the children's rhyme, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me." Though the intent of the author of rhyme was noble in trying to help children who were being bullied in the 19th century, the statement couldn't be further from the truth. Words are powerful and can be more hurtful than the most complex bone fracture. Pro. 15:1 brings together both powers that our words have: the power to build and the power to destroy. Pro. 15:1 – A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The Christian has been changed by the Holy Spirit of God and is indwelt by him. Therefore, he/she is free to use his/her words to build up instead of to destroy. As a matter of fact, the Scriptures say that it is a great contradiction of character and identity for a Christian to worship God and destroy the people around us who were created in God's image. Jam. 3:9-10 – With it [tongue] we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Eph. 4:29-30 brings all these thoughts together and grounds the necessity of speaking words of grace in our identity as Christians and the indwelt of the Holy Spirit of God. I. A Brief Review of This Series: The Ephesian Church. A. Paul planted this church in Ephesus (in modern day Turkey) during his third missionary journey. B. The church was planted through the persistent preaching of the Word of God in the power of the Spirit. C. A few years later, Paul wrote this letter to encourage the church. 1. The letter is about the Church and her Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. 2. It describes a plan designed by God in eternity past, accomplished by Christ in his life, death and resurrection, and now being applied by the Holy Spirit as people are being saved through faith in Jesus Christ. 3. This eternal plan is made most evident through the relationships in the church. II. The Battle for Words of Grace Starts in the Heart Mt. 15:11 – Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man. A. The word corrupt in our translation means more precisely rotten or worthless. 1. In the Bible, this word is only used by Jesus when he uses the analogy of a tree to describe the relationship between what we do and our heart. Mt. 7:15-18 – Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor cana bad tree bear good fruit. Lk. 6:43-45 – For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. 45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
2. So, a corrupt or rotten word comes with a heart that is struggling with who it really is in Christ (Luke makes the connection root/heart clear). B. Paul has already told us that as believers in Jesus Christ, we must put off things that are not consistent with our identity as Christians – rotten words that destroy are completely inconsistent with who we are in Christ, 4:20-24. C. If we don't like what comes out of our mouth, we need to look at our heart because "out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." III. What Are Rotten or Corrupt Words? A. When we listen to how Jesus used this word, we conclude that the image in Paul's mind is probably one of decay, of something that is spoiled. B. This kind of rotten language must be taken off like the old garment. 1. It is part of the old self of verse 22 that needs to be stripped away when a person becomes a Christian. 2. The garment of a rotten mouth must be taken off and thrown into the fire of sanctification. C. The kinds of language Paul may have had in mind. "By foul language may be understood in this context not only obscene vulgarity but slanderous and contemptuous talk, any talk that works to the detriment of the persons addressed or of those who are spoken." F.F. Bruce 1. There is such a thing as bad words. a. For some reason, it has been somewhat popularized in Reformed circles that there are no bad words, that cussing is not unbecoming a Christian. 1) After all they are just words (which is the exact opposite of what Paul is saying here). 2) This has been popularized by folks associated with the Federal Vision movement. 3) It goes along with efforts to justify other behaviors that have been historically considered sinful or at least unwise by the Church at large. b. Often when the point is made that there are words that Christians should avoid using, the charge of legalism and fundamentalism is made. 1) If this is the only or even first argument that comes to your mind as a justification for your use of words that are considered cuss or offensive words, then you might want to re-think your practice. 2) Why would a Christian who has been brought to the heights of happen want to use vulgar words that are by nature meant to offend or to cheapen the value of something God created? (more on this in a little bit). c. So, instead of asking ourselves, "What is wrong with using this or that word?", let's train ourselves to ask, "What is right, what is beautiful, what is edifying about the words that we are using as Christ followers?" 2. We are using rotten words when we take the Lord's name in vain. a. It is a great contradiction of who we are as Christians if we say, "God!" or "My God!" or "Christ!" or "Jesus!" just because we are mad or surprised or amazed. b. The names and titles of the Triune God stand for something good and pure. c. When we use them carelessly, we are destroying the awesomeness and holiness of God. d. We are not setting him apart as precious and holy and good and sovereign. e. We are saying that he is common and ordinary and not worthy of high consideration. 3. We can include in the category of rotten words the trivializing terrible realities. a. What's wrong with saying, "What the hell!" or "Hell, no!" or "Go to hell!" or "Damn it!" or "Damn right!" or "Holy cow!"? b. These expressions trivialize things of terrible seriousness. 1) It is a contradiction to believe in the horrible reality of hell and use the word like a punctuation mark for emphasis when talking about sports or politics or your favorite show. 2) The same is true of damnation – to flippantly damn this or that when the reality of eternity apart from God is the most terrible thing that could happen to any living soul betrays a complete disconnect in thinking. 3) And if the divine command, "Be holy as I am holy" carries for you the same weight it carried for Moses and Jesus and the apostles, you will simply find that "holy cow" or holy anything will stick in your throat because it treats something infinitely precious as nothing. 4. Rottenness is also present when we reference sex and the body in vulgar ways. a. With this kind of language people take good things that God has made and use them like mud to smear on whatever they get upset about. b. The whole assumption behind the use of vulgar four-letter words is that they communicate scorn or disdain or hate. 1) How, for example, does the act of sexual relations, created by God as good to be fulfilled in marriage, gets translated into a four-letter word and carry the meaning of hate and scorn? a) The answer is easy: first you get God out of your mind – that's fundamental to all vulgarity. b) Then you get the sanctity of God's creation out of your mind. c) And then, in your mind, you replace the tenderness of married love with the force of rape, and you have yourself a four-letter word which does verbally the same thing that rape does physically: it expresses selfish, uncaring abusiveness. 2) I would say to Christian women, "don't spend two minutes with a man who uses this kind of language because rape and rotten language come from exactly the same root." 5. The spirit and attitude in which words are spoken may rot them. a. The words themselves may be true and untarnished. b. But the usage is vicious and loveless. IV. Why Is This Important for Paul, the Ephesians, and Us? If we think of spoiled or rotten fruit, like Jesus did, four implications come to mind. A. Rotten words and language do not nourish. 1. Rotten fruit does not nourish, neither does rotten language. 2. It does not strengthen or improve or help. 3. It is not useful for food. 4. It is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. B. It will probably make you sick. 1. Rotten fruit will probably make you sick if you do try to eat it, and rotten language can make people sick, too. 2. In other words, it not only fails to give positive nourishment, it can cause negative harm. a. Words can wound a person very deeply. b. Words can be like the virus that transmits the disease of meanness or vulgarity from parent to child or friend to friend. C. It smells bad and makes the atmosphere unpleasant. 1. It makes noble and high and worthy thoughts all but impossible. 2. It is hard to savor beauty from a garbage dump. D. It may well come from a diseased tree. 1. If the fruit is rotten as soon as it appears on the branch (as soon as the words come out of the mouth), then the tree is bad. Mt. 12:34-37 – Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. 34 Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. 36 But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. 2. So, if a person is constantly taking the name of God in vain, or trivializing the realities of hell and holiness, or turning sexuality into vulgarity, or making words into weapons, and the like, then we can say that there is a rottenness inside the tree as well as outside. 3. If the fruit is bad, the root is bad. V. Instead of Rottenness, Let's Put on Love, 4:29b A. The second half of 4:29 is not what we might expect. 1. We might expect Paul to admonish us to clean up our language. 2. We might expect him to talk about words that are not vulgar or rotten or corrupt, but are pure and wholesome and creative and clear. B. Instead of proposing clean language, he proposes a whole new way of thinking about language. 1. Instead of saying, "You don't need dirty language to communicate your intention," he says, "the root issue is whether your intention is love." 2. In other words, the issue for Paul is not really language at all – the issue is love! a. The issue is not whether our mouth can avoid gross language. b. The issue is whether our mouth is a means of grace. 1) Here we have the shift from the external fruit to the internal root. 2) Paul shifts from what we say to why we say it, which is the actual issue. C. Is your mouth a means of grace that builds up those around you? 1. The theme of building up the Body of Christ is seen throughout Ephesians. 2. It is a goal of the Gospel – 2:21, 4:12, 4:16. 3. Paul wants us to ask ourselves, "Am I meeting a need with the words that are coming out of my mouth? Am I building up faith into the people who hear?" VI. A Revolution in Speaking A. This is a revolutionary way to think about our words, just like verse 28 was a revolutionary way of thinking about our employment. B. There is a parallel between what Paul says about working in v. 28 and what he says about speaking in v. 29 1. In v. 28, it is not Christian just to stop stealing, just to work honestly in order to have things. a. It is Christian to work to have in order to give – to meet needs. b. All our work is to be a display of grace. 2. This is exactly what Paul does here in verse 29. a. It is not Christian just to stop swearing. b. It is not Christian just to put good language in the mouth instead. c. It is Christian to ask the deeper, internal question: am I speaking now to edify? Is my mouth a means of grace? C. All our secular work is to be a display of grace, and all our speech is to be a display of grace. D. A Christian is a person whose rotten root within has been made new by grace through faith in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1. The grace of God has taken the hate and anger and resentment that spill over in mean and vulgar and irreverent language, and has covered them with the blood of Christ and killed them along with the old unbelieving self. 2. A Christian has been made a vessel of grace in order to pour that grace on others. E. The grace of God left behind HOPE in the place of the old hate, anger, and resentment, 30 (sealed to the day of redemption). 1. A Christian is a person in whom the Holy Spirit of God dwells, and that this Spirit of God seals the believer for the day of redemption. 2. In other words, the Spirit God puts the stamp of his own image (4:24) on the life of the believer and guarantees that he will persevere to the day of redemption. 3. The hope of all believers, guaranteed by the seal of the Spirit, is that at the end of history we will come to a day of redemption instead of a day of damnation. 4. What is this day of redemption? a. It is the day when the long battle with sin will be over. b. It is the day when the deepest longings of our heart will be satisfied with the sight of the glory of the grace of God in the face of Jesus. 1) No more groaning with imperfection. 2) No more waiting; no more frustrated longings. 3) Our redemption will be complete. F. What is the point of Eph. 4:30 in relation to rotten language and gracious language? 1. Paul says that the Spirit has been given to seal us and secure us for an infinitely wonderful future. a. In other words, the Spirit's sealing work aims to give us hope! b. So, how do you grieve this Spirit? 1) By not hoping in the day of redemption! 2) By not hoping in the power of the Spirit to secure us and help keep us. 2. The language that comes out of a heart that is indwelt by the Spirit and yet doesn't build up those around contradicts the Spirit's presence. 3. That grieves him because it is out of hopeless hearts of discouragement and frustration and anger and bitterness and resentment that all rotten and hurtful language comes. 4. If we as believers stop and think for a moment that Christ has died for our sin, that God has promised to work all things together for our good, that he has given us his own Holy Spirit for the specific purpose of sealing us for the day of redemption, then surely a deep and confident hope will be the root of our life. 5. And up through that root will flow the sap of grace, and out onto the branches of our life will come the fruit of a whole new way of talking.
The question for our mouth will not merely be the moral question: Am I avoiding dirty words? But the Christian question: Am I building the faith of others by what I say? Is my mouth a means of grace? Am I frightened and anxious and angry about my life, or am I filled and overflowing with hope that the Spirit of God will keep me safe for the day of redemption?
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