Let's Talk About... Cussing

Intro:

I know you guys are always trying to get Eden to do things or say things when you’re around her and so many of you have learned that sometimes she is in the mood to do anything you ask and be a lot of fun playing and copying you but sometimes she just shuts down and doesn’t say or do anything you ask her to. Fair enough for sure, she is aways surrounded by people here and hey she doesn’t have to perform for anyone! But what you don’t get to see is that most of the time when it’s just Jenna and I with her, she talks non-stop and will do or repeat almost anything we want her to. But sometimes, she repeats things we don’t want her to. Last week, as we were setting up for things in here, I was carrying Eden around at one point, which is always fun and interesting. But she was following me around and then I picked her up and had to get something out of that closet but right when I walked in I realized that I had forgotten to do something important and I said “Shoot!” and immediately, Eden perfectly said “ Shoot” in her own tiny little voice. And I was shocked by that and I said “Oh dang” and of course she then said “Dang” in her own tiny little voice.

So, that’s funny and even pretty cute, And I realize those aren’t terrible words or anything, but it hit me in that moment how careful I want to be now with Eden copying me, because I want Eden to grow up using good words that reflect Jesus in every way.

Now, I have run into people all my life who use far worse words than I said in the closet back there. I have also known people who claimed to be christians that chose to regularly use cuss words or profanity in their vocabulary because they believed it didn’t matter.

Their argument was usually something along the lines of-

hey they are just words,

they don’t actually matter,

I am not using them to hurt anyone,

they are only called bad words because people labeled them that way,

or the Bible doesn’t tell us what words we can and can’t use.

I’m sure some of you have heard at least one of these reasons or even thought about it for yourself at some point. and many of you have even brought up the question before of whether or not cussing is a sin.

So, tonight, let’s talk about that.

It’s one thing for me to want Eden to speak a certain way that reflects our family and faith well , but it is another to say that using certain words or phrases is sinful. What does the Bible actually say?

let’s start at the beginning, literally. Genesis 1. The creation story. In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And how did He create it? With his speech. 10 times in the story of God creating everything, including us, we see the phrase “God Said” and then something is created.

The very speech of God is what created all that exists! If you continue to follow this phrase of God said in the rest of the Bible you will see it continues the same trend of bringing things to order and life. He speaks the truth about all things, he speaks against lies and evil and brokenness. So, starting from the very beginning and going throughout the rest of Scripture we see:

God’s speech brings order, life, and truth.

And we are made in God’s image, meaning God speaks, so we speak and we are meant to speak the way that God speaks. Just like every other aspect of our life, God has given us speech to use the way that He designed us to! Just like God then, we are meant to use words to bring order to the chaos of our world, to speak life where there is death, and to speak truth in the midst of a world of lies. Another way to put this, is that our language is meant to express our love for God and for others.

We will come back to this later and how this actually plays out. But we had to get to the root of why we can talk and what the purpose of our speech actually is before we get to the specifics of what words are good to use and what words are not.

But again, we have the question- is cussing actually a sin?

So, it is important to note that the Bible does not give a list of words that are sinful to say and a list of words that are safe to say. But that wouldn’t make sense of last long. Every time period in history and very culture around the world has words that are considered bad, inappropriate or offensive. So, no list but the bible does mention those types of categories of speech a lot! Based on one commentaries study, God's Word mentions our speech in over 120 passages, and many of those are cautions about using it wisely.

Let’s look at just a few verses that mention it:

Ephesians 5:4 “Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks.”

Proverbs 8:13 “To fear the Lord is to hate evil. I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech.”

Ephesians 4:29 “No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear.”

2 Timothy 2:16 “Avoid irreverent and empty speech, since those who engage in it will produce even more godlessness,”

So:

Obscene Words- offensive or disgusting in terms of morality and decency

Crude Joking- offensively rough or explicit

Perverse Speech- twisted, unacceptable, or distorted

Foul Language- offensive, wicked, immoral

Irreverent Speech- a lack of respect for things considered serious and holy.

Using God’s name flippantly, or the idea of Hell in a casual way.

If there was any question about whether or not the bible addressed the words and language we use, I hope this answers that! Any sort of cuss word, inappropriate joke or comment, any hurtful comment, talking bad about someone, gossiping about someone, spreading rumors, or words that are considered offensive are clearly all not appropriate biblical language.

One caveat- this doesn’t mean that if our world labels something that the bible calls true and right offensive we should stop saying it. But outside of what Scripture does call us to say- if something is considered offensive in a particular place or culture we should avoid saying it.

Again, this is just a quick glimpse at the bible’s categories for the incorrect way to use the god-given ability to speak.

We see a clear picture here of these categories that are unfit for any christian to speak with. Again, it makes sense- if our speech is meant to bring life and love and truth. Then of course we shouldn’t speak harshly, explicitly or perversely.

So, clearly, the Bible calls certain language sinful.

The Bible calls these certain categories of language wrong and it makes sense because it doesn’t line up with God’s use and purpose of language. That is sufficient for a reason why it is sinful but there are some more deep truths about the language that we use.

First, the words we use reveal what is really in us.

Matthew 12:33–35 ““Either make the tree good and its fruit will be good, or make the tree bad and its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. A good person produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil person produces evil things from his storeroom of evil.”

Out of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Or, as the pastor of our old church use to always say with an old cliche: “What’s down in the well comes up in the bucket.”

If you go to a well that is contaminated and dirty, you will pull up contaminated dirty water that will make you sick. On the other hand, if you go to a clean well with good water, you will be able to drink good water that will give you life!

Jesus doesn’t use the term well here, he uses the idea of a storeroom or a treasury. Imagine a safety deposit box or a bank vault. You store up everything you care about and value in there. Over time you build up a whole wealth of things that matter most to you in there. Jesus says, what we store up in our hearts will overflow out of our mouths.

If your heart is full of the life of Jesus and the goodness and truth of His Word, then the words that come out of your mouth will reflect that goodness and truth.

A heart that loves God and loves others, will lead to a mouth that only uses language that expresses that love for God and others.

Put Shorter- If your heart is full of Jesus, your words will sound like Jesus.

Later in that same passage from Jesus he gives us another reason why our words are so important:

Matthew 12:36–37 “I tell you that on the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word they speak. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.””

This is a strong statement but what Jesus is saying first is that God will even judge our small talk, the thoughtless words we say in every day circumstances. so, how much more so does God care about the big things we say? If God cares about the quick what’s up I say to the guy at the coffee shop, how much more important is the way I talk to my wife and family, or the way I share the Gospel, or my verbal declaration that Jesus is LORD!

Jesus is saying it is through a verbal statement of faith- that we believe in Jesus and trust Him as Lord that we are forgiven and saved, but God cares about the small statements we say every day too. Every word is meant to glorify God and point people to Him!

This is why Jesus is making one big point here-

Every word we say matters to God.

The words we use reveal our hearts and either lead people closer to or farther from God. So, every word matters to God.

Then, finally let’s see how we actually should choose the words we say.

As we have already said our language is really meant to express and share our love for God and others.

This means that more than just not using “bad words” as we follow Jesus, it is much more about actually using our language intentionally the way that Jesus wants us to.

I believe we can find our standard for how we should talk in Psalm 19:14

Psalm 19:14 CSB

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

Are the words that come out of our mouths- which reflect the contents that are deep in our hearts- holy, pleasing, and acceptable to our God? And to be clear, yes this includes the words we text, and even using emojis or acronyms that stand for bad words.

We could go in depth into a whole bunch of good uses for language and how our words should be kind, patient, loving, holy. But, at the end of the day this one verse gives us the standard for all of that-

WE must decide that our goal is to please God with every area of our lives. With the psalmist we must desire for the words of our mouth and the meditations of our hearts to be acceptable to our Lord!

Everything we say, do and think is meant to praise God and point people to him. The way we speak is a huge part of our discipleship! We can’t skip over it or disregard it. It is way too important!

Practices:

So, let’s just say some of us in here are struggling to be careful with how we speak. How do we begin to change these things to look more like jesus?

Filter your heart.

Check the music, movies, shows, games, people in your life. If they are using bad language consistently around you just know that you are going to have those things in your heart and they will also overflow out of you eventually.

Challenge- no secular music for a week and see how your language changes.

Fill your heart.

Read the word, listen to worship music and christian artists, surround yourself with people who speak like Jesus!

Like eating healthy food, you will begin to crave holy speech.

So,

I have a confession for a long time I cussed, a lot. Starting in elementary school all the way through 9th grade I used every bad word imaginable and probably some I made up! First it was to fit in with the people around me. My friends cussed, even my parents cussed. But then I surrendered to Jesus as Lord in high school and a pastor challenged me to stop listening to secular music for a week. I almost instantly stopped cussing and believe it or not, I haven’t cussed since! Not accidently slipping up, not when I’m alone, nothing.

But to be clear, that’s not some sign of spiritual maturity- spiritual maturity is growing far beyond not cussing, and then learning to use our language to worship God, build people up, and further Gods kingdom through our speech! Let’s be a ministry that speaks like this, let’s be a ministry that speaks like Jesus!

If our heart is full of Jesus, our words will sound like Jesus.

Bow your heads, close your eyes with me.

The good news is, we have all said things we shouldn’t and we will all say things that don’t sound like Jesus at some point in the future. But we can confess those things and God is faithful and righteous to forgives us for our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness!

SO, right now will you just confess to God the times your speech hasn’t sounded like Jesus? Maybe it was a cuss word, maybe it was a hurtful word, or gossip. Confess it to God and ask Him to forgive you and know that He does.

Next ask God to help you honor him with your speech and teach you to talk more like Jesus with every word in the future!

We are going to sing in just a moment a song that talks about God rescuing us from our sin! He came to our rescue and saved us from our struggle with sin and now all we are is His! Our whole life belongs to him! And we want Jesus to be lifted high with our lives in this world.

Let’s sing this out together as our response and praise God with every voice in this place.

If you need to talk or pray, or maybe you’re here and you’ve never trusted Jesus as Lord and want to talk about that- you can come talk to me or one of the other leaders during or after this song and we’d love to talk to you!

Let’s pray and then sing together!

PRAY!