This morning, we heard a sermon preached from Ephesians 4:29-31:

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

As our pastor took us through the text, his first point was that Christians should be characterized by constructive speech. And under that first point, he highlighted that this meant that there should be “no foul language escaping” from our mouths (i.e., “corrupting talk” above).

As he came to this point, he shared that when a young teenager, yet still unsaved, he and a friend in his Christian school covenanted between themselves to cut out all foul language (cursing) from their vocabulary. They solemnly pledged to do this, and as a primary means for helping one another, they agreed to put rubber bands on their wrists. Each time one would hear the other cuss, he would “help” him by pulling the rubber band and then snapping it to the discomfort of the one who’d cursed.

This little experiment failed. Within a month, they stopped wearing rubber bands, for the only result was sore wrists — both young boys’ speech continued to be marked with foul language.

Why? Because, as Pastor Cliff highlighted, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34b). The problem was, so to speak, they were trying to stop sewage from coming out of a pipe connected to sewage drains. All the rubber bands, all the disincentive, all the external “fixes” could not remedy the nature of the output. It was not until he was saved by the Lord in college that — to his surprise — he found that suddenly his language was no longer punctuated by foul words! The reason? He had a new heart! As Jesus put it, “the good person out of his good treasure brings forth good” (Matthew 12:35a)! The sewage drain that had once dumped its contents out of the pipeline of his mouth, had been replaced with a well of clean water!

Yet… how often do we approach sanctification — the process of becoming more like Christ, obeying God’s commands and pleasing Him in every way — with a “rubber band” methodology rather than a heart-centered theology? When confronted (convicted!) with Scriptures that identify our sin and command us to change our behaviors… we put on mere external mechanisms in an attempt to change those behaviors. We seek accountability (the “rubber band” effect), we try harder (“the solemn vow”), we feel rotten and confess to others, read our Bible more often, with no real sense of what is at the heart of our sin!
In doing so, we seek to grow in holiness ignorant of the real problem: our sinful behaviors are the symptom. The cause of our sin is our hearts. As Solomon wrote (Prov 4:23):

Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.

To “keep” here, of course, does not mean the opposite of giving away. And the heart does not simply refer to a blood-pumping organ. To keep the heart means to have a vigilant watchfulness and care for the beliefs and affections and desires that rule our actions. That’s right: what we love and what we want and what we believe determines what we do!

The Christian has been given a new heart, which explains why when Cliff was initially brought to a saving knowledge of Christ, it was natural that foul language disappeared “mysteriously.” A love to Christ and corrupt talk are antithetical to one another. But insofar as we fail to cultivate a growing love for Christ, a growing sense of His majesty, a growing knowledge and understanding of His grace, and growing humility in the light of His kindness, etc.; we make room for the sinful habits of our old man to take root.

What then? Just as Christians parents need to do more than just behavior modification of their children, but are called to “shepherd” their hearts to lead them to Christ; so to we Christians need to shepherd our own hearts! We need to do more than just “catch ourselves” in acts of sin with “rubber bands,” in hope of being ashamed enough to stop.  We need instead to carefully figure out what it is that has replaced our love to and trust in Christ’s promises, to such a degree that we have been taken in by the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13).  And we should apply ourselves to the task of loving and studying and meditating and ultimately trusting in Christ’s promises — purchased for us at the cross, the heart of the precious gospel — so that sin’s promises would have no effect on our lives.