Sermon Tone Analysis

We’re all familiar with the common sayings.

“You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Or, “It’s not whats on the outside, but on the inside that counts.”

The desire, or really the necessity, of being able to see inside something is common, because those sayings are often very true.

Often what is on the outside of something doesn’t give the whole picture of what is going on inside.

If you’ve ever had a car, you know that it can be shiny and slick and waxed up and polished, seats shampooed, carpets vacuumed, dash wiped down, but if it won’t start, run, and drive, all the exterior glory of your motorized horse and buggy won’t do you much good.

This is especially true in the medical world.

The ability to see inside a person without actually going inside a person has revolutionized medical care and saved millions of lives.

Over the past couple of months, as Doctors worked to try to diagnose what was the matter with my eyes, I became acquainted for the first time with many of these tools.

I had EKG, MRI, CT, Ultrasound, X-Rays, and all kinds of Retinal Imaging - all because what looked fine on the outside was, in fact, not fine at all.

We want that kind of precise, exacting science to be able to help us determine what is wrong, at least, when we know and can admit that something is wrong.

However, sometimes those same tools reveal to us that something is wrong when we didn’t expect it, or when we didn’t want to admit it.

In our short passage today, Jesus speaks to the Pharisees about the revealing and diagnostic properties of our words.

Last week, we looked at the teaching on the unpardonable sin - blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Now, if you remember, I said very carefully that it is very unlikely that you have commited the unpardonable sin - especially if you are concerned before the Lord that you might have!

However, we did also say that while you most likely haven’t commited the unpardonable sin, you and I most definitely have commited a host of other sins, and for those we need help and forgiveness.

Those two things come together in these five verses this morning, because we are dealing with two things - words, and the issue of the heart, or what is inside.

The Pharisees were dangerously close to committing the unpardonable sin because of what they had said - because of their words.

Jesus goes on to tell us that our words don’t just come out of nowhere.

They aren’t abstract or potential realities, rather our speech is an action that bubbles up out of our inner being - from our heart.

Now, if you remember way back to when we were in the Beatitudes in Matthew, you will recall Matthew 5:8 which says this.

When we studied that, this was the big idea and the conclusion that we came to:

The pure in heart have a singular, overarching desire for God and His ways – they are blessed, because their desire will be met in seeing God.

We did a lot of legwork in that study, looking at the way the Bible uses the word heart, and uncovering some of the treasures of that picturesque term, but to summarize we could say this:

The heart, in the bible, is the seat of our lives.

It is the inner-being.

Our thoughts, emotions, desires, volition, all flow from the heart.

Our life flows from our heart.

What we do flows from out heart.

What we want flows from our heart.

How we respond flows from our heart.

What we say flows from our heart.

The heart, or the inner man, is critically important because, at the end of the day, it is who we truly are.

So much like a mechanic may use a scanner to see what’s wrong with your engine, and much like an MRI technician uses magnets and dye to see what’s going on with your brain, Jesus gives a diagnostic tool in this passage as well.

By teaching us about the revealing nature of our words, Jesus gives us a barometer of our hearts.

How are your words, and how is your heart?

1. Jesus’ Teaching On Words

Let’s start this morning by just walking through this short passage.

Jesus, again, still on the topic of forgiveness because of the evil words that the Pharisees had just spoken, begins with an illustration from agriculture.

I’m no gardener, that is Lizzy’s department in our house.

But this spring I did venture out and plant 5 blueberry bushes.

What I have learned about blueberries is that they require much more than meets the eye.

The soil has to be just right - sandy and loose enough to drain, but not drain too quickly.

They need a high-PH content or else the leaves will yellow and the berries won’t turn blue.

They need to be watered, but not too much or the shallow roots will rot.

They need lots and lots of sun, but if its too hot they can burn.

They’re pretty picky little things, and there are a lot of details that go into determining whether you will actually get blue-berries, or any berries at all, from the blueberry bushes.

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.”

Jesus says that the fruit tells something about the reality of the tree.

If the blueberries are not edible, something us unhealthy with the bush.

If apples don’t grow on your apple tree, something is wrong with the tree.

Much like trees and bushes, our lives can be characterized by fruit.

And when we read on, we find that Jesus’ is making a supreme judgment about the fruit that the Pharisees are producing.

These are sharp words - brood of vipers.

Literally, the “generation” or “children of vipers.”

This is the second time we have seen this term used in Matthew, and both times it has been about the Pharisees.

The first time was by John the Baptist, and now Jesus confirms that diagnosis and uses it again.

“How can you speak good, when you are evil?”

Jesus makes the judgment call, the determination that only he can make, that the Pharisees were not righteous as they claimed and even at times looked to be - but rather they were evil, right to the very core.

Jesus states that in two ways - the first being the “brood of vipers” comment.

Israelites, and especially the Pharisees, preferred to be known as sons of Abraham - the Father of the Faithful.

But Jesus rather claims that their heritage is better described as poisonous snakes.

The second is with the comment at the end of the verse - “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

Here is where we begin to see the main idea in these verses.

Our words say something - that may seem obvious, but they say more than we really know.

Our words reveal something about us, and not just a little something, but they take a core sample right down to our very heart, our inner being.

Jesus is essentially saying that the reason the Pharisees speak evil words against Him is because their hearts are evil - he makes no two ways about it.

Jesus refers to the inner being as a treasury.

If you go to Ft. Knox Kentucky, you will find close by the United States Bullion Depository, where roughly half of the US Treasury’s Gold Bullion is safely kept.

Its a fortress so impenetrable that Ft.

Knox is used as a description of anything particularly hard to get into.

Some of you may consider your inner being to be locked up tighter than Ft.

Knox.

That is, you might deem yourself hard to read.

You might think that your inner battles, inner struggles, inner tendencies and emotions and passions and cares are inaccessible to the outside world.

Well, What Jesus says here makes it clear that sometime, in some way, you are going to have to speak - and when you speak, what you say is one of the most telling images of the treasury of your own heart.

That is a picturesque description, isn’t it?

The heart as a treasury.

The heart is a treasury of what you are and what you desire.

In that passage, Jesus warned us not to “treasure treasures,” but rather to treasure heavenly things - to treasure God and His Kingdom.

Where our treasure is says much about our heart.

But also, what we “treasure” says a lot about our heart.

We could ask the question, if we opened up your heart, what treasure would you find there?

If we opened up your bank statement, what treasure would we discover that you value most?

If we opened up your mind, what would your inner thoughts display of your values?

Well, I cannot open your heart, your mind, or your bank statements - but you can, and the Lord Jesus certainly can, and he gives a great tool for that purpose, at least for the heart, in paying attention to our words.

Our words are one of the best indicators of treasure, because we speak from the overflow of our treasure.

If the heart is a treasure trove of our values and desires, then eventually that treasure - what we treasure, is going to show up somewhere and somehow - and there is a good chance it will show up in what we say.

We have all had a moment - we say something.

Something rude, something scathing, something unkind, something untrue, something hurtful or damaging or critical or imprudent - and in the next moment, we wish we could retract our words.

We may say something like, “I didn’t mean that!” or “You know I was just joking!”

But in that moment, we have a little x-ray machine available to us, because we know the reality behind those words.

It has been said somewhat jokingly and lightly that a drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts.

Well, we could modify that a bit and say that an Angry man’s words are a calm man’s thoughts.

A bitter man’s words are a kind man’s thoughts.

An abusive man’s words are a gentle man’s thoughts.

In the heat of the moment, when push comes to shove, when things boil up to the surface, what we say reveals something about who we are inside.

Now, I want to be careful here - because there are obviously times when words can be unclear.

for instance, you can say something and be misunderstood, or misheard, or misinterpreted.

You can genuinely misspeak and use the wrong word or term.