It’s all about conformity. It’s all about being like the example, or the model. So take for instance, the moonwalk. A couple weeks ago we were all doing the moonwalk at home. I showed the kids a video of the “King of Pop” gliding effortlessly across the stage. Which inspired all of us to put our socks on give it a try. Now, as far as I was concerned, I was as good at the Moonwalk as I am at the Chicken Dance, so I told the kids “MJ has nothing on me,” and I was ready for my own white glove and a stage. Afterwards, I strutted all confident over to one of my daughters, who shall remain unnamed, and I said, “So, Grace, my moonwalk looked like the real-deal, didn’t it?” And she said, “Not even close.”
I suppose I need more practice to make my moonwalk conform to look like Michael Jackson’s. The Christian life is a conforming life. Everyday we “practice” our faith, and we conform every day more into the image of Jesus. How we act, think, attitude, outlook and how we talk should all be “on the way” to resembling Jesus Christ more and more.
When it comes to wisdom we want to be more like Christ. When it comes to speaking with wisdom, we want to be like Christ. Proverbs is a treasure-trove of help for this. Last week we saw Part 1 of The Wisdom Of Words. We saw we should Use More Wisdom, and we saw we should use Less Words, and we explored the different ways Proverbs teaches us to use less words.
HOW WE SHOULD USE OUR WORDS
First, the wise use their words to CHEER. Proverbs 12:25 says, “Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.” The word “kind” can mean kind, but it also means good, appropriate, and pleasant. As we grow in wisdom we learn how to use our words to lighten the hearts of those who are weighed down by their anxieties and worrisome cares.
Second, the wise use their words to HEAL. Proverbs 12:18 says, “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise bring healing.” People with wisdom know how to use their words to bring healing to people. The Word of God will train us to counsel with people, giving them good words to help them heal. This kind of wisdom is for anyone who is devoted to knowing and living by God’s word and helping others with it. But especially pastors. Pastors aren’t supposed to simply teach and preach in the pulpit. They’re supposed to be able to come alongside people and bring words of healing. Titus 1:9 says anyone who is a pastor must be able to “encourage others by sound doctrine.” Encourage is a word that means to “call to one’s side,” “to exhort, “ “to comfort,” “to console and strengthen by consolation,” “to instruct.” So a pastor can’t be full of a bunch of platitudes, instead he has to have a real understanding of doctrine and be fluent in God’s word so that he can bring it to bear on someone’ situation, consoling them, encouraging them, teaching them, meaning helping them see their situation better through the lens of Scripture, making them stronger spiritually, emotionally, psychologically. God’s word is the instrument, the pastor is the surgeon.
Now, this doesn’t happen for two reasons. One, a pastor doesn’t know how to counsel with God’s word to help someone, meaning he is ignorant and unskilled. Either he’s lazy or is just flat out incompetent. But second, when a pastor does know the word and how to counsel with it, often times people don’t want a pastor, or the Bible, they go to therapists and counselors and psychologists. If you can’t trust your pastor to help you heal with God’s word, then can you trust him in the pulpit to know how to teach it in any meaningful way? Or, if you don’t want your pastor to help you heal by using God’s word when counseling you, then do you really want God’s word when he’s preaching it?
Third, the wise speak TRUTH. Proverbs 12:19 says, “Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.” Verse 22 says the Lord “delights in those who are trustworthy.” Agur showed more of his wisdom in 30:8, “Keep falsehood and lies far from me, Lord.” Proverbs is 31 chapters contrasting wise behavior and foolish behavior. It is wise to speak with truth, and foolish to lie.
Fourth, the wise use their words to CALM. Proverbs 15:1 says, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Or 25:15, which pictorially says, “A gentle tongue can break a bone.” I love that, it conveys the idea that a brute force approach with someone most often is not the best approach. But patient gentleness is a better approach with people.
Fifth, the wise use their words to promote LIFE. Proverbs 10:11 says, “The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life…” The opposite is true, where the foolish use their mouth to destroy. P
But the wiseProverbs 15:4 says, “The soothing tongue is a tree of life…” The wise know how to use their words to soothe, and to nurture “life.” Like 10:21 says, “The lips of the righteous nourish many…” Proverbs 16:24 says, “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”
APPLICATION: Grow in wisdom so that your words can nourish many, bringing healing, soothing souls, and being a tree of life.
APPLICATION: Make sure that you’re hearing words of wisdom, so that you can get healing, nourishment, and be soothed in your spirit. Eat from a tree of life, drink from a fountain of life. Make sure you’re having life and having it more abundantly because you are wise enough to make sure you’re listening to wise words in others. Don’t play the fool and sit under fools. Who’s preaching do you sit under? Who’s counsel do you seek out? You show your wisdom or your foolishness in your actions.
Sixth, the wise know timing matters with their words. Proverbs 15:23 says, “A person finds joy in giving an apt reply, and how good is a timely word.” Knowing what to say is important, but so is knowing when to say it. More famous is Proverbs 25:11, which says “Like apples of gold in settings of silver, is a word fitly spoken.” The right words, but at the right time, matter. “If anyone loudly blesses their neighbor early in the morning,” Proverbs 27;14 says, “it will be taken as a curse.” The wise know timing matters with their words.
The next two relate to this one.
Seventh, the wise know when NOT to correct. Proverbs 26:4 say, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.”
You have to know when to withhold from fools the wisdom of your correction. Proverbs 23:9 says, “Do not speak to fools, for they will scorn your prudent words.” Jesus said, “Do not throw your pearls to pigs or they will trample them under their feet and then turn and tear you to pieces.” The point is the same: don’t waste your wisdom on fools. That’s why Proverbs 9:7 says, “Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults; whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse. Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you.” Just because you have wisdom that a fool could benefit from, they won’t benefit from your wisdom because they’re a fool and fools hate wisdom.
Eighth, the wise know WHEN to correct. Proverbs 9 goes on in verses 8-9, “Rebuke the wise and they will love you. Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still; teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.” You can see a person’s wisdom or foolishness by how they respond to a wise correction. The wise are wise not because they know all wisdom, but because they love wisdom and are committed to learning it, and living by it. So when wisdom is presented to them in the form of a correction or a teaching, they readily grab hold of it, appreciate it, and apply it.
Think of what King David said in Psalm 141:5, “Let a righteous man strike me – that is a kindness; let him rebuke me – that is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it…” I remember when I preached a sermon called, “How To Take a Punch” based on that verse, the final point I made was this: “You have to care more about righteousness than you do about ‘being right.’” Let me quote from that point:
Some people cannot take the notion that they are ever wrong. We have all seen people, sometimes the person in the mirror, who stubbornly refuses to admit any wrongdoing and who vigorously defend themselves to the death. In scene 3 of Shakespeare’s play The Winter’s Tale, King Leontes mourns his coldness of heart and says “I am ashamed: does not the stone rebuke me, For being more stone than it?” Let us not be so much like stones and stubbornly unaffected that we are unresponsive to a good and needed rebuke. Proverbs 12:1 says “he who hates correction is stupid.” Proverbs 13:1 says, “a mocker does not listen to a rebuke.” And sadly, in the process, the righteousness of God is not seen anywhere in their life because they hold on to their sin so strongly. When we are rebuked, we have to care more about God’s righteousness than we care about being in the right.
APPLICATION: Pay attention if those who are wise are quiet around you. You just might be the fool in the situation.
APPLICATION: If you have wisdom, don’t be foolish about it and spout it off indiscriminately. “The wise keep their knowledge to themselves” Proverbs 12:23 says. “But a fool’s heart blurts out folly.” Be selective with dispensing your wisdom, wait to be sought out. There are times to go and press your wisdom on others, but its not as often as we might think.
Ninth, using words with wisdom means backing up our words with action. Go with me to three proverbs. First, go to 14:23, “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.” Turn to 25:14, “Like clouds and wind without rain is one who boasts of gifts never given.” Turn to 26:7, “Like the useless legs of one who is lame is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.” Which means, a fool may recite a proverb but they don’t use it in their life.
CONCLUSION:
My assignment for you is to read Proverbs and note every verse that tells us about how we should not use our words. There is much in there about slander, flattery, stirring up conflict, mere talk, mocking, chatter, revenge and more. Make heading “FOOLISH TALK” in your bible or a notebook, and write down every verse that describes or warns about bad ways of speaking. It is an edifying exercise.
As for right now, I may not look anything like Michael Jackson when I’m doing the moonwalk, but that’s not important. What is important that I resemble the Lord Jesus Christ when it comes to speaking with wisdom.
Do you want to know the wisest thing you could ever say? You have to believe it of course, but there is something you can say that is the wisest thing your lips could ever utter. It is this: “Jesus Christ is my Savior, who died for my sins on the cross, and rose again from the dead.”