OLD SCHOOL WISDOM | Week 3 | Full Service

Pastor Daniel Goulding · Jun 20, 2023

Big Idea

Our words will produce either life or death, and we don't have the power to control our tongue on our own — only God can change our hearts so our words change.

The words we speak carry far more power than we realize — able to build people up or wound them for a lifetime, even without our seeing the damage in the moment. We cannot tame our own tongue by willpower, but what is impossible for us is possible with God: as He touches and transforms our hearts, our speech begins to overflow with life instead of death.

Key points

1
1Our words carry the power of life and death, far more than we imagine.
Pastor Daniel opens Proverbs 18:21, where Solomon says the tongue can bring death or life, and notes that men speak roughly 7,000 words a day, women closer to 25,000, adding up to about 850 million words across a lifetime — 850 million opportunities to sow life or death.
2
2James shows that a controlled tongue marks a mature follower of Christ.
Turning to James 3, Pastor Daniel explains that James, the half brother of Jesus, teaches that faith is internal but produces visible fruit, and that learning to control the tongue is evidence of a healthy, mature walk with Jesus, not sinless perfection.
3
3The tongue is small but its damage can be massive, even when we can't see it happening.
He tells the story of a 1850s doctor who discovered handwashing reduced deaths in childbirth but couldn't prove why and was rejected until decades later when bacteria was discovered, then applies James 3's image of a small rudder steering a huge ship and a small spark starting a forest fire — illustrated by California's 2018 Ranch Fire, started by one spark from a hammer, that burned 440,000 acres and killed two people.
4
4No one can tame the tongue on their own — we need God to do what we cannot.
James 3:7-8 says people can tame animals but no one can tame the tongue, which Pastor Daniel calls the tension of the message: our words matter enormously and yet we can't control them by sheer effort. He points to a Japanese scientist's experiment speaking positive and negative words over water and photographing the resulting ice crystals as a picture of how powerful words are, even on something like water, which makes up most of our bodies.
5
5A deadly tongue shows up as gossip, complaining, and careless words.
He warns against gossip disguised as prayer requests, quotes Philippians 2:14 on doing everything without complaining or arguing, and uses Proverbs 26 to compare careless joking that wounds people to a madman shooting a deadly weapon.
6
6A life-giving tongue gives compliments, encourages, and corrects in love.
Pastor Daniel encourages giving genuine compliments, noting that words of affirmation is a common love language for men who are rarely spoken to except when they've done something wrong, and shares a memory of his grandmother privately telling every grandchild they were her favorite. He adds that correction is still necessary but should happen in love, not in anger, citing 1 Thessalonians 5's call to build each other up.
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7Our words flow from our hearts, so lasting change starts with God touching the heart.
Citing Luke 6 that a good or evil heart produces good or evil words, he walks through Isaiah 6, where Isaiah confesses he has filthy lips and lives among a people of filthy lips, and an angel touches his lips with a burning coal to remove his guilt — the picture of how God, not self-effort, transforms our speech.

Application

Pastor Daniel frames the response as asking God for a clean heart so our mouths can finally speak life instead of death.

Root out gossip and complaining
Refuse to disguise gossip as prayer requests, and stop polluting your environment with complaints, choosing instead to confront issues directly with the person involved.
Watch your careless, joking words
Notice when humor or sarcasm, even meant in jest, wounds people, and be willing to apologize and change how you speak to those closest to you.
Give compliments and encouragement freely
Look for genuine things to praise in your spouse, kids, and friends this week, and take responsibility for putting courage into the people around you.
Correct in love, not in anger
When hard conversations are necessary, let the anger pass first so the correction comes from a place of building the other person up, not tearing them down.
Pray for a clean heart and guarded lips
Pray Psalm 51:10 for God to create a clean heart and Psalm 141 for God to guard your mouth, trusting Him to do the inward work you can't do through self-effort alone.

Take it into your week

Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“Here's what Proverbs chapter 18 verse 21 says. It says that the tongue can bring death or life. Those who love to talk will reap the consequences”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“That gets us to James chapter three. James chapter three is where James will essentially expand on this thought. He will go in-depth on this very thing”
From the transcript
“James' book, Crescendos, in chapter two, and he says, faith without works, it's a dead faith. It's not a real faith. A person who claims to be Christian but lives nothing like a Christian maybe is not a Christian”
From the transcript
“He says, Indeed, we all make many mistakes. I can relate to verse two, right? He says, for if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way”
From the transcript
“In verse three, he says, here's what's crazy is we can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth”
From the transcript
“Here's where James ends this section right here in verse seven. He says, people can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one, no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil that is full of deadly poison”
From the transcript
“Here's what the Bible tells us about complaining in Philippians chapter two verse 14. It says, you and I are supposed to do everything without complaining and arguing”
From the transcript
“Here's what Proverbs chapter 26 says about careless words. Notice this picture. It says, just as damaging as a madman shooting a deadly weapon”
From the transcript
“This is what Paul encourages us to do. In first Thessalonians chapter five, he says, our responsibility is to encourage each other and to build each other up”
From the transcript
“It's why Jesus says in Luke chapter six, he says that a good person will produce good things from the treasury of a good heart and an evil person produces things from the treasury of an evil heart”
From the transcript
“Psalm fifty one ten records this incredible prayer from the Psalmist and his prayer has asked is that God, would you create in me a clean heart? Would you renew a loyal spirit within me”
From the transcript
“there's another prayer that I would encourage you to pray that's found in Psalm 141. It says that while I'm being purified internally, God, would you take control of what I say and guard my lips”
From the transcript
“In Acts chapter two, when the Holy Spirit falls on the scene, Pentecost happens. It's this really bizarre scene where the disciples for the first time are filled with the helper, the Holy Spirit”
From the transcript
“Maybe just maybe it's found in this prayer that Isaiah prays all the way back in Isaiah chapter six verse five. Here's how I end this whole message. Isaiah says that as I saw God, I then said, it's all over. I'm doomed for I'm a sinful man”

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Day 1

Most of us don't walk into a conversation thinking, 'This could change someone's life.' We just talk. We fill the silence, we react, we respond — and then we move on, rarely stopping to consider what we left behind. But Proverbs 18:21 stops us cold: 'The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.' Pastor Daniel opened with this verse not to guilt us but to wake us up. Every word we speak is an act of sowing — and whatever we sow, we eventually harvest. That's not a threat; it's just the way the created order works. If we speak careless words over someone — a cutting joke, a dismissive remark, a whispered criticism — something withers. If we speak honest encouragement, real affirmation, patient correction, something grows. The invitation this week is simply to take words seriously. Not to become anxious about every syllable, but to begin seeing speech as consequential. The people in your life today — your family, your coworkers, your friends — are waiting, whether they know it or not, for someone to speak life over them. You could be that person. That's not pressure; that's a gift being handed to you.

For reflection

Think about someone in your life who regularly spoke life into you. What did that actually sound like, and how did it shape you?

Pray

Pray for a genuine awareness of the weight your words carry today — not fear, but honest attentiveness.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message takes a close look at something we all do hundreds of times a day — open our mouths and speak — and asks whether we've really reckoned with how much those words actually matter.

Discussion questions

1
Proverbs 18:21 says, 'The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.' What do you think it looks like in everyday life when words bring life — and what does it look like when they bring death?
2
In James 3:3-6, James compares the tongue to a small rudder steering a massive ship and to a spark that sets a whole forest ablaze. What is James getting at with those comparisons — why do you think he reaches for images of things that are tiny but have enormous, hard-to-reverse effects?
3
James 3:7-8 says that while humans have tamed all kinds of wild animals, no one can tame the tongue — it is 'a restless evil, full of deadly poison.' If willpower alone can't solve the problem, what does that tell us about where the real solution has to come from?
4
In Luke 6:45, Jesus says that what comes out of a person's mouth flows from what is stored in the heart. How does that shift the way we think about words — from a behavior to manage to something that reveals what's actually going on inside us?
5
Pastor Daniel pointed to Isaiah 6, where a burning coal touches Isaiah's lips and removes his guilt, as a picture of the kind of heart transformation only God can bring about. What does that image suggest about the posture we need to take — and how is that different from treating this as a self-improvement project?
6
Pastor Daniel challenged us to pray two specific prayers this week — asking God for a clean heart using Psalm 51:10, and asking Him to guard our lips using Psalm 141 while that inner work is happening. How might regularly praying those two prayers together — rather than just trying harder — change the way we approach the words we speak?

Pray together

Ask God to do what only He can do — purify our hearts and let the words that flow from them bring life to the people around us

Topics

Guarding Your Tongue Heart Transformation Speaking Life Spiritual Maturity The Power of Words

OLD SCHOOL WISDOM | Week 3 | Full Service

Big Idea

Key points

Application

Take it into your week

Scripture in this message

7-day devotional

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Small-group discussion guide

Open

Discussion questions

Pray together