14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
—The words Of King David from Psalm 19:14
In the fall of 1964, I had the privilege of attending a conference for young men considering full-time ministry. The leadership of a particular denomination had arranged for a number of well-known, and presumably powerful, pastors to speak to this group of fledgling potential ministers. I remember one speaker in particular.
“You not only have to smile like a pastor and look like a pastor and think like a pastor and dress like a pastor and walk like a pastor, you also have to speak like a pastor and pray like a pastor.”
I remember thinking that this sounded a lot more like advice a director might give an actor playing the part of pastor rather than the kind of instruction that a seasoned warrior of the faith might give a bunch of new recruits about to enter the field of battle.
“Your people, your congregation, will expect a great deal of you. You will find it will greatly enhance your ministry if you do not disappoint their expectations of you—at least not too much, anyway.”
Several years before, when I had first considered the possibility that God might be calling me into the ministry, I began to notice how pastors acted around other people, how they dressed, how they talked, and especially how they prayed. Sometimes, pastors used what I came to call “prayer tone.” They would pray with a deeply sonorous-sounding voice and use particularly flowery language. I have to admit it sounded a bit phony to me. But I remember some of the adults in the congregation remarking how they loved to hear Pastor So-and-so pray.
Well, it’s no secret that I did not become a pastor. (Perhaps I’ll address the reasons why in some future blog post.) Even though I never sought ordination, I have never stopped observing how various pastors present themselves to the world. Quite often I have a strong sense that somewhere along the way, they listened carefully to the kind of lecture I heard so many years ago.
A frequent artifact of following such advice becomes evident in the pattern that some pastors have established and executed faithfully each week as they begin their sermons. They typcially start with a reading of the text they have chosen for that day. They follow the reading with a prayer. Very often their prayer includes the Scripture passage quoted at the beginning of this blog post from Psalm 19.
Now I grant you that King David’s words have great power. In fact, the whole of Psalm 19 just smacks of enormous truth. It gives praise to God and talks about the rightness and righteousness of all that we can know about Him. Without a doubt, David’s words have an inherent worthiness about them.
Many of the pastors who have adopted the pastorly manner of praying David’s words before they preach no doubt sincerely mean what they’re praying. Preaching, after all, has a sacredness about it that should take those in ministry and shake them to the very core of their beings.
The preacher stands before the congregation as a representative of the God of the Universe and has a sacred trust to faithfully proclaim God’s truth. So, it’s no wonder that conscientious servants of the Most High would pray, asking God to enable their words to please Him.
I think that each one of us would do well, however, to take this concluding declaration of David to heart and apply it to every word that comes out of our mouths. Rather than limiting this verse to those who preach the Word of God, we should embrace the sentiment it represents and determine that every word that we speak in every situation represent the kind of words that would please God. And, necessarily, if the words we might intend to speak do not have qualities that would please God, we should remain silent.
We are all representatives of the God who loves us. When we acknowledged the gift of eternal life He has given us through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, God moved us from being creatures to children. (If you doubt this assertion, please carefully read John 1:12.) As God’s children, we should have an overwhelming desire to speak words that always please Him.
I confess to you that I need to personally redouble the efforts in my own life to make certain that what I say in every situation pleases God. It provides no comfort to me to know that I am not alone. I find that it seems far too easy to slip into a pattern of speaking words that dishonor the God who loves me.
As you begin to deal with this issue in your own life, I would suggest that you also pay particular attention to any pastor you may hear using these words repeatedly as an introduction to his or her sermons. Ask youself if that pastor consistently guards his or her speech. Does he or she speak harshly to staff members or congregants? Does anger flash from his or her lips? Does he or she speak unfavorably about others? Does he or she often seem to bend, or even break, the truth?
Of course, you should ask these same questions about yourself and you should ask these questions about any of your fellow believers. We all need to do a much better job of guarding what we say. After all, Jesus spoke these words in Matthew 15:18:
18 “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’”
Words have the power to hurt or heal. Let us determine to speak only those words that will be pleasing to God.
Will you pray with me?
Thank You, God, for loving us. Thank You for sending Jesus to be our Savior. Thank You for sending us Your Holy Spirit to dwell within us.
Help us, O Lord, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, to guard what we say. Help us to edit our words before we speak them. Help us to withhold words that will hurt and only speak words that will heal. Help us to put aside unkind speech. Help us to stop lies from coming out of our mouths. Nudge us to say kind words that will help breathe life into those we come in contact with throughout the days ahead.
Thank You, Loving Father, for Your unfailing, undying love and care. Thank You for every provision of Your grace that You freely give to us to help us along our way.
Thank You for having preserved Your truth down through the ages, so we can learn from it today. And, thank You for hearing our prayer in and through the precious Name of Your Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
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