Week 9: WISDOM OF OUR WORDS
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On Sunday Travis preached on James 3 and the power of our words to either build up or tear down. James dedicates an entire chapter to this topic, so he must have thought the use of our words was very important in the life and witness of the church. James indicates that “no one can tame the tongue” but here and elsewhere the Bible instructs us to mindful of the way we speak. This study aims to help us understand how through the help of the Spirit, we can tame our tongues and use them for God’s glory.
Please make sure you have watched Sunday’s sermon before Community Group.
Begin with silence and prayer
[5 minutes]
Sit down, get comfortable and ask someone to pray aloud for the study.
Then spend a few minutes in silence. Ask God to help us remove distractions from our minds, listen to what He is saying to and through each of us and change our lives accordingly.
DEBRIEF
Reflect on last week’s study application (smaller groups)
[10 minutes]
Last week, Kieran invited us to be people who learn contentment. Contentment comes from gratitude. The challenge of our study last week was to cultivate gratitude through the course of our week by practice several simple acts, including:
Psalm 118:24 in the ESV says: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Write this out, print it out or put is as a lock screen on your phone so that you see it first things every day.
Start your day taking 1 minute to thank God. List specific things you are thankful for.
Before you go to sleep, take 1 minute to list and thank God for the blessings of the day.
Make more time for thanks in your daily prayer time.
Start a gratitude journal. This can be paper or a note on your phone. Turn to it when you need are feeling discontent or are tempted to compare your life with others’.
Each day write something you’re thankful for on a piece of paper and put it in a jar. At the end of the month take one out and reflect on God’s goodness. This works great with a family.
Express your gratitidute to someone in your life. Thank them for the way they bless you. Tell them that they are blessing from God.
How did you go putting these ideas into practice last week?
If you did put them into practice, did you notice a difference in yourself?
If you didn’t put them into practice, what stopped you? What WILL you do to work on gratitude this week?
DEEP DIVE
Open to the Bible together (whole group)
[15 minutes]
Have somebody read the following text:
Matthew 12:33-37
Talk about the following questions:
What does Jesus mean when he says “a good/evil man brings good/evil things out of the good/evil stored up in him?” How does Jesus relate our words to our hearts?
Have you noticed that your mouth speaks what your heart is full of?
In verses 37-38, Jesus says that we will have to give an account for every empty word we have spoken, that we will be either acquitted or condemned by our words. Do you think this is true? If so, what does that mean when it comes to our speech?
What would it look like to use our words in the right way?
Read the following texts:
Proverbs 10:31
Proverbs 12:18
Proverbs 15:4
Psalm 34:12-13
What do these texts say about the power of our words?
DISCIPLESHIP
Application for the coming week:
[15 minutes]
Growing up as kids we often heard the saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Biblical wisdom, however, would say that sticks and stones may break your bones AND words can definitely hurt you. As followers of Jesus, we are reminded over and over again to be a people who represent Jesus with our lips; to be encouragers and those who build up, rather than those who tear down. In the sermon, Travis mentioned the seeming contradiction between the need to tame our tongues and the impossibility of taming our tongues. The Bible’s answer to this is that it is true…we cannot manufacture goodness or godliness on our own. We need help. This is where the work of the Holy Spirit comes in. It is the Spirit who can enable us to tame our tongues when we cannot grasp control for ourselves. There are four (at least) applications we can seek to put into practice as we ask for the Spirit’s help to tame our tonuges:
Nurture godliness rather than selfish ambition. This means to pursue holiness and to thirst after Jesus rather than rely on ourselves and do whatever pleases us. As we pursue Jesus, we become more like the “good person who speaks good things out of the good stored up in us”.
Pray that God would give you an awareness of your words. Often we don’t even have the capacity to reflect up what we are saying during or even after we speak. Many times the things we say are hurtful or false or destructive when we don’t even realize it. So we need God’s help to make us cognizant of what we are saying and how our words may be received.
Redirect negativity, sarcasm and complaining into confession and gratitude. We see this habit throughout the psalms. Instead of allowing the stress, negativity, hurt, etc. to flow over into our conversations with others (or at others), men and women of faith understand that when they instead take these things to God, God can and will hear us and either change our situation or our perspective so that at the end of the day our words will be words of praise and thanksgiving. When we are feeling angry or hurt or upset, we should direct our feelings to God first rather than outward at others.
Practice speaking words that build up, encourage and comfort. Like many things, being gracious speakers and encourages comes with practice. The more we build up the muscle of our tongue in praise and kindness, the easier it becomes.
If this is the case, here are some things you can try this week:
Set aside time each day (or during the week) to connect with Jesus. You can do this by reading his Word, through prayer, through a conversation with a brother or sister in Christ, through quite reflection, etc. If we are not setting aside regular and purposeful time for Jesus, it will be hard to reflect godliness in our speech. What time can you set aside and when?
Pray before and after conversations you had. Ask God to reveal to you if they were encouraging or destructive, helpful or harmful? Pray God draw things to your mind that you make work on and change.
If you are feeling upset, frustrated, angry, hurt, cry out to God. We spoke on this a few weeks ago. God can handle anything you throw His way, even if it involves shaking a fist and raising your voice. The psalmists did it. So did Jesus. We are meant to approach God with anything, so before you blow up at someone about what is going on in your life, take it to God first.
Find someone who needs encouragement and encourage them! It can be a co-worker, a family member, a friend or even a stranger. Remember how someone greatly encouraged you and how that made you feel and think of how you can do that for someone else.
Be ready to report back next week on how you go!
Close in prayer
[15 minutes]