The Stewardship of your Speech

On last Lord's day, I continued my series on "Total-Life Stewardship." The message was on the stewardship of the body (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). I sought to make two major points in that message: (1) We should strive to be healthy, and more importantly, (2) we should strive to be holy.

God willing, this sunday I will preach on the stewardship of our speech or our words. The Bible is clear that words matter to God. And our words matter to God. There are many reasons why what we say matters. But maybe the most important reason why we should be on guard about what comes out of our mouths is because the words we say reveal the condition of our hearts (Matthew 12:34b). Or as the old saying goes, "What's down in the well will come up in the bucket."

Words are powerful (Proverbs 18:21 - I hope to take a moment in the message to address what this verse does and does not mean). And we should use our words for good and not for evil (James 3:1-12).

This is a hard subject, because none of us can say that we have totally mastered our tongues - even though that would be a great thing to do (James 3:2). But the good news is that God is able to change the way you talk. If you confess your sins, the Lord will forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). And the Bible gives a lot of practical instruction for how to bridle our tongues.

May the Lord use his word to help us to become better stewards of our words.