"Words Matter: Wise Speech” | Rev. Vicki Harrison
At New Hope This Sunday
Worship looked a little different this week. After last Sunday's Celebrate America service, Bobby Lain led a stripped-down, acoustic set — just a guitar and voices — opening with "Be Thou My Vision" and inviting the room into the kind of living-room worship "where I learned to love worship… just you and me and Jesus." We've also entered a season of prayer and fasting as a church, and Pastor Vicki reminded us that God is good even when the noise of the world makes us forget it.
Upcoming at New Hope:
Prayer & Fasting — pick up a prayer-and-fasting calendar at the welcome desk to use as a guide. Thursday mornings are our weekly time to fast until lunch; if fasting from food isn't right for you, choose something else, like social media or coffee.
Baptism Sunday — July 26 — whether you've never been baptized or you'd like to remember the baptism you already have, this is your opportunity to make a public profession of faith in Jesus. Because of the July heat, this year's baptism will be held indoors in the sanctuary. Talk to any pastor or staff member to take the next step.
Wise Speech
"Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." It sounds simple — right up until the moment you actually need it.
In week two of the Words Matter series, Rev. Vicki Harrison moves from what Scripture says about our words to the harder question underneath it: how do we actually live it out? Drawing on James 1:19 and James 3:13-18, she asks what it means to speak with godly wisdom and self-control — and how the words we choose reveal who we are in Christ.
Our words reflect who we are
Vicki is honest about her own struggle. The pastor who has trained herself to be careful with her words on a Sunday morning can walk in her front door and let her husband get "the worst of me." Most of us know the feeling of speaking before we think — and the sinking realization that once the words are out, we can't reel them back in. That's the whole point of the series: what we say matters, because it reflects who we are. What we say to the people we love, to a stranger on the street, and to the watching world online all matters.
The instruction is about timing
James 1:19 gives a command that's easy to memorize and hard to obey: be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Vicki suggests reading it in reverse — slow to anger, slow to speak, quick to listen — because anger is usually the early-warning sign that sets the whole chain in motion. She's never once regretted taking a moment before she speaks; she's often regretted speaking too fast. That patience is godly character — self-control and wisdom — and while it's genuinely hard, it's part of how God transforms the heart.
Listen first — it's the posture of a Christ-follower
By putting "quick to listen" first, James teaches us the posture we're meant to take. God even built the lesson into our bodies: two ears and one mouth. We can't turn our ears off, but we can close our mouths. That desire to listen first matters most with the people we disagree with, because speaking too quickly in anger can ruin a relationship — and our witness. Looking someone in the eye and truly listening lets us say, "I disagree with you, but I still value you." As Proverbs 18:13 puts it, "To answer before listening — that is folly and shame."
What godly wisdom actually looks like
James 3:17 describes the wisdom that comes from heaven as pure, peace-loving, gentle, and full of mercy. Vicki draws out two marks in particular. Godly wisdom is pure — not tainted by envy or self-seeking, always expressed in love. And it's peaceable and gentle — it doesn't insist on its own way. Being wise means slowing down long enough to think before we speak, and recognizing that the person in front of us is made in the image of God, with inherent worth — even when we disagree with their politics or their religion.
Every person bears God's image
Scripture is consistent on this. Genesis 1:27 says God created humanity in his own image. Matthew 7:12 gives us the Golden Rule. In Mark 12:31, Jesus ties loving God to loving our neighbor as ourselves. Luke 6:36 calls us to be merciful as our Father is merciful. Jesus lived it out — he even told us to love our enemies. As his people, we're to regard others differently than the world does, valuing every single life.
The Dignity Index
Vicki shares a story from a recent trip to Philadelphia, where she attended a TED exposition on democracy held for the nation's 250th anniversary. One talk described a family of seven who landed all across the political spectrum and couldn't get through a meal without the digs and unkind words. So they built what they called the Dignity Index — a scale of how we speak to one another. At the bottom is speaking to people as though they aren't even human — "it's us or them." At the top is this: each of us is born with inherent worth, so we treat everyone with dignity, no matter what. Focusing on each person's worth instead of their party transformed how that family lived together. "That'll preach," Vicki says — because it's exactly how followers of Jesus are called to speak.
Flip the narrative
We've all seen the man with the sign and the long list of everyone who's "going to hell." Words are powerful. What if we flipped the narrative — leading not with condemnation but with, "Did you know how much Jesus loves you? He wants a relationship with you"? This doesn't mean agreeing with everyone. We hold to truths we don't compromise — that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. But how we communicate that is critical.
What if Jesus joined the debate?
Vicki closes with a question she sat with all week: what if Jesus were physically here and agreed to a debate on any hot topic — immigration, abortion, affordable housing? How would he speak? He wouldn't resort to name-calling or ugly words. He would speak the truth, but he'd speak it in love. He'd ask questions to help people think more deeply. He would listen, and he wouldn't talk over anyone. We're called to be different from the world around us — marked by wisdom, self-control, patience, and dignity. "May the words we speak reflect who we are in you," she prays, "and not what the world tells us to be."
Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. The words we speak represent who we are in Jesus — so we can choose them carefully, and we have the ability to flip the narrative.
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More Sermons in this Series
Other Sermons from Pastor Vicki
You've heard it said that words are just words. Jesus disagrees. In this final message from the Words Matter series, Pastor Roberto Chaple opens Matthew 12:35-37 to show us that what we say is a window into what we're storing up — and that our words carry more weight than we've been willing to admit.