Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode, we're asking the question, do you praise God with, uh, that mouth? And this is prompted by an opinion piece in the New York Times recently asking the question, why have we as a culture become so comfortable with profanity? Now, it used to be that profanity couldn't be said on most channels. It was not acceptable in most social circles. But at least according to this opinion piece by Mark Edmondson, that is no longer true. Uh, people feel freer than ever to let all kinds of words fly. And in fact, see this as, uh, indicative of a kind of personal autonomy, meaning we're no longer succumbing to, uh, institutions which tell us what we can and can't say. We're free to be who we want to be. We're free to say what we want to say. So much so that even public figures, uh, political officials, uh, educators, people that in the past would have been our representatives of decorum, or at least of diplomacy, are now also filling their mouths and our airwaves with all kinds of filthy words. And what Edmondonson is arguing is that it would be a much better societal turn for us to be more careful about what we say. And actually, I think he's right. And, um, now I will say this. Anyone who's ever done any youth ministry knows that at some point a precocious 11 or 12 year old is going to come up to you and say, why is cussing as sin? Because where in the Bible does it say, thou shalt not c. And it's a fair question. So if you're a precocious 11 year old listening to this episode, I'll allow it. But the Bible actually does have a lot to say about our words. Let me sketch out for you a little bit of theology of the things you say. Uh, let's start here. The Bible tells us that words, language should be used to build, not corrupt. Ephesians 4:29 says, Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth. The idea here is that the things we say are either elevating the people around us or bringing them down. They're either leading them closer to God or away from God towards righteousness or towards sinfulness. Now, it doesn't follow that every four or five letter word that we can think of automatically tears people down, but many of them do, right? The context of language tends to be Anger, it tends to be, uh, things that are derogatory. And in that way, it's invalidated because our goal is to love our neighbors and to love them through our language. It's also true that we have to keep in mind that our mouths are primarily for the worship of God. And if that's true, then there's a certain amount of holiness to them. At least that's the point James makes in James 3:10 when he says that praising and cursing come from the same mouth. This should not be so. James is saying that it doesn't follow on a Sunday morning that you're singing all these wonderful things about God, and then on a Sunday afternoon, you're singing kinds of awful things about the other people in traffic. James is saying, hold on a second. Which one is the real you? How can these things go together? The mouth that's singing the praise and glory of God should be coming from a heart that is full of love for God. And of course, that's the big idea here, isn't it? Jesus said, uh, the mouth speaks out of the overflow of the heart. That's Luke chapter 6 ve 45, which means we tend to think that, well, I can say whatever I want to say because that's not how I feel. That's not who I am. Well, Jesus says, you're wrong. Every word coming out of my mouth is anchored to something in my heart. So even if I can argue that a word in and of itself isn't sinful or wrong, if it's coming from somewhere in my heart. Jealousy, bitterness, anger, impatience, frustration. If it's coming from something in my heart that God would say is not good, then for that reason alone, it's not right and it's not helpful. That's why the Bible calls us to be holy in our language. Colossians 3:8 says, to rid yourselves of filthy language. What's Paul saying as good things go in my heart? Good things? Like the kind of things he talks about in Colossians 1 and chapter 2. If that's what's filling my heart, then eventually that's what should be coming out of my mouth. It isn't just that bad words come from bad hearts. It's that hearts being made new lead to vocabularies being made new. The truth is, speech is not benign, it's malignant. Don't believe me. Check out social media. Don't believe me. Listen to the conversations that are happening in our culture. Proverbs 18:21 says that death and life are in the power of the tongue. If you are tired of the cultural conversations that are happening in our country, I know you don't have the power, and neither do I, to push a button and make them go away. But you do have the power to fight for your words and your heart to speak life. And if enough of us start speaking life, who knows? It might just be that those around us, and the culture as a whole, starts to be more interested in life than the things and the words of death. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content, or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!