How many of our regrets are the words that slipped from our mouths: mounting anger that ruptured into a torrent of destructive ugliness, icy sarcasm that cut deeply into raw and unappreciated sensitivities, relentless criticizing that crushed the other until the tears flowed? Only afterward did we truly appreciate the injury and pain of our own doing. And looking back, we cringe as we hear the echo of our voice saying what should not have been said; or more accurately, what should not have been thought.<\/p>\n
There is an intimate path between our words and our heart. Christ said, \u201cFor out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks\u201d (Matt. 12:34). Our speech simply puts on display what is produced in the heart\u2014whether good or evil (Luke 6:45). If others want to know the state of our hearts, then they only need to listen to us talk. We are telling them. In fact, we are telling them more than we probably mean to be telling them. Our anxiety, hatred, fear, pride, selfishness, hypocrisy, lust, and deceitfulness are not born in our mouths; they are conceived in our hearts. Our words simply give these sins a public hearing\u2014shaping them with meaning and energizing them with tone. If our hearts are coddling worldliness and immorality, or are obsessed with fear and insecurity, or are overflowing with arrogance or selfishness, it will come out in our speech. You really can tell someone\u2019s religion by their speech (James 1:26). Words reflect the state of our heart; and our heart\u2014more than anything else\u2014reflects the state of our walk with God.<\/p>\n
Our Lord\u2019s teaching about the connection between our words and our heart helps us appreciate that to progress in verbal holiness we must first appreciate this fact: a lack of self-control with our words reflects a lack of self-control in our hearts.<\/p>\n
In Scripture, self-control is actually a two-sided affair. Although we often use the words\u00a0self-control<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0self-discipline<\/em>\u00a0interchangeably, the Bible distinguishes them. Self-control refers to restraint, what we purposely censor or subdue. Self-discipline refers to what we direct, what we intentionally compose and declare. In self-control we hold back and in self-discipline we choose our course. For example, Proverbs praises the wise man who verbally distinguishes himself from the fool. The wise man is marked by self-control: \u201cA fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back\u201d (Prov. 29:11). He is also marked by self-discipline: \u201cThere is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing\u201d (Prov. 12:18). The righteous person is known by what he says and what he does not say, by the absence of inappropriate words and the timeliness of appropriate ones, by the rare appearance of angry and sarcastic speech, and the frequency of words that bring peace and healing.<\/p>\n Words reflect the state of our heart; and our heart\u2014more than anything else\u2014reflects the state of our walk with God.<\/p>\n What an advantage to understand then that self-control and self-discipline are fundamentally issues of the heart. Now we know where to get to work. If we want speech that is seasoned with the salt of grace, then we need to make use of the classic Christian disciplines of grace that shape our hearts. The word of God, prayer, and the sacraments are the means of grace that God uses to nurture holy hearts that bring forth words that will please our God, encourage fellow Christians, and illumine the path of life for unbelieving friends. Wise words will flow from hearts that are rooted in God\u2019s wisdom. Self-control will flourish as we pray in the Spirit because God has given to us a spirit of self-control (2 Tim. 1:7). Baptism will remind us that we are cleansed by Christ\u2019s blood and must speak as those who are made pure. Through the Lord\u2019s Supper, the Holy Spirit will strengthen us with God\u2019s grace so that we might endure\u2014not just in deed or in word, but in our heart.<\/p>\n Perhaps now we appreciate the psalmist\u2019s plea, \u201cLet the words of my mouth and<\/em> the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight\u201d (Ps. 19:14).<\/p>\n A. Craig Troxel is the author of\u00a0<\/em>With All Your Heart: Orienting Your Mind, Desires, and Will toward Christ.<\/p>\n Content adapted from\u00a0With All Your Heart\u00a0<\/em>by A. Craig Troxel. This article first appeared on\u00a0Crossway.org; used with permission.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Words of Our Heart How many of our regrets are the words that slipped from our mouths: mounting anger that ruptured into a torrent of destructive ugliness, icy sarcasm that cut deeply into raw and unappreciated sensitivities, relentless criticizing that crushed the other until the tears flowed? Only afterward did we truly appreciate the … Continue reading “Help! I Can\u2019t Get Control over My Tongue”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}