Cedric Pisegna - The Power of Words

I’m Father Cedric Pisegna, welcome to «Live with Passion»! So glad that you’ve joined us. I’m producing a series about discipleship. Discipleship is following Jesus with our actions and with our words. Change your words and you’ll change your life. I wanna share with you from the gospel, this is the Gospel of Matthew chapter 12. Jesus said, «Either make the tree good and it’s fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad. For the tree is known by its fruit. The good person out of the good treasure of their heart brings forth good, and the evil person out of the evil treasure in their heart brings forth evil. I tell you this, on the day of judgment, people will render an account for every careless word that they spoke. For by your words, you will be justified. By your words, you will be condemned».

This is something that we’re always doing, speaking. My dad was a carpenter, and he made his living by working with wood. I’m a priest, and I make my living by working with words. Words are very important. As we just heard, «By your words, you will be justified. By your words, you will be condemned». Wow, we don’t normally think about that, but they reveal our heart. We speak from our heart. Our words tell people who we are. Good fruit, bad fruit, all from speaking. Grew up in Massachusetts, born and brought up there, and we used to have the frigid cold mornings. I would stand out there at the bus stop talking to my friends.

Every time I said something, you could see this little cloud of mist come from my mouth because it was so cold. Every time you speak a word, it was like this power, this efficacy, this energy came forth from my mouth. That’s so true. Words, whether you see them or not, they have power. There is efficacy to build up or to tear down, to hurt, to destroy, or to help. Words are powerful. It’s the words of Jesus that save us. In fact, as a disciple, anyone who says that Jesus is Lord, says it, believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead, will be saved. You’re saved by your words. Paul the Apostle said, «I believed it and so I spoke». Speaking is so vitally important, it’s powerful. There’s inspiration in words. God spoke and things happened.

Paul talked about the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. What is the gospel? It’s words, words spoken, words written that contains power. Billy Graham spoke of the gospel and he said it’s got inbuilt power. There’s power in the gospel, these words that are brought together in a specific way to give us life. Trying to stress to you that words are containers of meaning, power, efficacy. Be careful how you speak as a disciple. We’re learning how to speak. Babies learn how to speak as they grow up, and same with disciples. This series is about being an authentic disciple. You’re not really an authentic disciple when you’re swearing, and taking God’s name in vain, and lying, and talking about other people in gossip, right? Authentic discipleship, disciples that are close to Jesus, they know how to speak, and they speak well.

One of the encouragements I get from people all the time is Father Cedric, we like your TV program because you don’t mince words, you speak clearly, we understand you, no gobbledygook. That’s exactly how I speak. I’ve learned to do this. It’s taken time. Very clear and understandable. I work at that. Words are important, they’re powerful. We can encourage and build up others with our words. In fact, in the early church, one of the disciples was called Barnabas. His name means son of encouragement. Bar means son of, Barnabas was a son of encouragement. He went around encouraging. He traveled with Paul. He was an encourager, and in many ways that’s what I do in my ministry with my words. Try to build you up and encourage you.

But words can also tear other people down. We can hurt people with our words. We have to be careful how we speak. Proverbs 18 tells us the power of life and death is in the tongue. Life and death in the tongue. «By your words, you will be justified. By your words, you will be condemned,» whoo. As disciples, don’t we try to encourage, and to help, and to console people? People come to me and they confess their sins, try to help them change their confession from something negative to something positive. Words are really important. Be careful how you speak about yourself, about yourself and other people. That’s called prophesying your future.

If you’re older, for example, and you forget something, don’t say things like, «I’m, losing it, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached. Soon I’m gonna be forgetting my own name». That’s prophesying your future. You want to help yourself by not speaking negative about yourself. People engage in all kinds of self-deprecating thoughts and words all the time. They say things like, «I can’t, I’m stupid. I’m such a fathead. Just my luck». These are things I’ve heard from people. I never get good breaks. I’m not talented, and on, and on, and on. Rather, change your confession, prophesy your future in a good way. Say things like, «I can do it. I am blessed. God’s favor is upon me. God has a great plan for my life. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I’m more than a conqueror». Change your confession, change your words, and you will change your life.

«By your words, you will be justified,» put right with God, «By your words, you will be condemned». You’re never gonna realize your potential or be enthusiastic if you’re negative. You have to speak positive words out of your life. We do this in the Catholic Church all the time. For example, during the Mass, after the first reading, we have something called the responsorial palm, the response. Remember, discipleship is a response to the call, and in the responsorial psalm, we speak the very words of the Bible out of our mouth over, and over, and over again. What’s the church saying? That we ought to be speaking God’s Word out of our mouth, not just the stuff of society and the culture, things like, «The Lord is my light and my salvation».

Then we hear more Scripture, then, «The Lord is my light and my salvation». We get that in us, things like, «The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,» «The blessing of God is upon me,» and then we speak something called the Creed. «I believe in one God, the Father Almighty. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son and Lord. I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the Catholic Church,» and even if you’re not Catholic, speak those words out of your mouth. I believe in one God. I believe in Jesus, the Son of God. I believe in the Holy Spirit. «I believe and so I spoke,» Paul said in the Scriptures. Same with us. We speak the Creed. If you declare with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, Romans says you will be saved. Of course, you believe that he’s been raised from the dead. You speak faith words out of your mouth, so important.

Now, I’m not big on repetitiveness, and rote things, and ritual in some ways, but I believe that the church is on to something here, and what they’re on to is the fact that God’s Word has power, the power of the gospel, and we need to be speaking our faith, speaking the Word of God, prophesying our future in a good and positive way. And sometimes you just have to be repetitive about it to get it in you, instead of all this stuff that we get from TV that changes our confession to a negative. Now, let me shift gears. If we’re in a car right now, I’m gonna put it in another gear and talk about some of the negative things that we say. In fact, James, the letter of James, a scathing letter in some ways, scorching letter, he says that ships are steered by a little rudder, and our lives are steered by a little tongue because of the way we speak, that it can’t be tamed he says.

We can tame animals, and we can tame other things in life, but we can’t even tame our own tongue. That’s what discipleship is. It’s about learning how to speak. He says it’s a fire. He says we bless with our tongue and we curse with it, and it ought not be that way. I’m an avid golfer and love to play golf, and sometimes I just go out to the Muni, that’s the public course, join up with guys I don’t even know. They don’t know me, be dressed in a t-shirt or whatever, and shorts, and you play. And golf is a very difficult game, it demands precision, and it’s hard to get that little ball in a little hole 400 yards away, 500 yards away.

And because of the imperfection of it, all, it breeds anger, and anger breeds words, and before long, the person that you’re playing with will GD this, and GD that, and Jesus this, and Jesus that. Hard for me to hear. Then as the round goes on, probably the eighth or ninth hole, hey, by the way, Cedric, what do you do for a living? I thought you’d never ask that. I’m a Catholic priest. You can always tell the Catholics, they turn red when you tell them that because of all the swearing that they’ve done. Well, if you’re embarrassed and ashamed before a Catholic priest because of your words, what’s it gonna be like when you stand before Almighty God? «By your words, you will be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned».

Is it Jesus this and Jesus that, or God this or God that, or is it Jesus is Lord? Let me share what Jesus has done for me. All you have to do on judgment day, God doesn’t even have to videotape your life and show it to you, all that needs to happen is a little angel comes forward with a tape recorder, presses the play button about what you’ve spoken in your life, and that will either justify you or condemn you. Words are really important. It’s interesting when Jesus talked about hell, he talked about people gnashing, the gnashing of teeth. Why are people gnashing their teeth? Because of regret. Because of what they said. Change your words and you will change your destiny.

Jesus said, «Let your yes be yes and your no mean no». In other words, not all these words, and all this stuff, and all this gobbledygook that everybody’s… just speak it clearly and speak from your heart. People come to me to Confession all the time and they talk about how they’ve taken God’s name in vain. Swearing, gossip, negativity, mostly out of anger. It’s easy to do. I understand, I’m not perfect. I’ve done those things. In fact, I fell into a bad habit when I was a young person growing up. I was in my teenage years before I came to Christ. I guess I got it from the culture, from the society, from other people. You listen to other people and you talk like other people. That’s what happens in families.

Moms and dads, watch how you talk around your children, because they pick it up, and they will sometimes speak exactly the way and swear words too, exactly. They will mimic what you are saying. Somehow, some way, and I’m not blaming it on my parents, but I just would say «Jesus» all the time. Something bad would happen, I’d go, «Jesus». I’d stub my toe and go, «Jesus». And it became like this mantra for me. Notice, I wasn’t saying Buddha or Muhammad, that’s because Buddha and Muhammad are not gonna come in glory, Jesus is. They’re not the Son of God, Jesus is. We’re not gonna go before them in judgment, we’re gonna go before Jesus in judgment.

Well, anyway, I had that bad habit, then when I finally came to Christ, I got serious about being a disciple. I came to understand that I can’t be taking the Lord’s name in vain all the time. It’s a bad witness and it’s self-condemning. I asked God to help me and I bit my tongue. I changed my words, and you can, too. Don’t take the name of the Lord your God in vain. That is right from the Ten Commandments. It’s about speaking. Yeah, you can change, you don’t have to stay stuck when it comes to that. We are responsible for our words and the consequences of our words, really important. Told you a little bit about golf already, I’m an avid golfer, and Phil Mickelson, everybody knows about him, who he is. He’s a star golfer, Hall of Famer, known throughout the golf and the sports world.

Back in 2022, he made some comments about Saudi Arabia, their human rights violations. He was very outspoken in his statements, led to sponsors like Callaway and KPMG, who were paying him millions of dollars, to drop him like a hot potato because of his words. See, his words cost him a lot of money, and he lost millions of dollars. And this happens from time to time, not only in the sports world, but in politics, among actors when they speak sexist words, racist words, political words that are wrong and false. They get dropped. And as I said, when Jesus was giving us a picture of hell, he talked about people gnashing their teeth in regret. I don’t want that to happen to you. You’re a disciple, speak plainly. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Jesus said anything else comes from the evil one.

I always wince when I hear people that I’m with, especially religious people, religious people, I wince when they say things like, «What the hell»? or, «I’ll be damned». That gives me goosebumps, when somebody says, «I’ll be damned,» not good. What are they doing? Oh, yeah, they’re just kind of ha ha. No, it’s more than that. If you’re a mature disciple, you don’t speak like that. Don’t prophesy your future like that. Rather than, «I’ll be damned,» say, I am saved. I am blessed. I am favored. God’s love is upon me. I’m on the way to heaven. I am forgiven. Prophesy your future. Speak those words out of your mouth. Say Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart he’s been raised from the dead, and you’ll be saved. «By your words, you will be justified. By your words, you will be condemned».

Those aren’t my words, those are the words of the Son of God, and they are absolutely true. I’ve discovered that people really like to talk about themselves. Have you ever noticed that? People are like talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and they talk about themselves. I remember one time a woman was talking about herself, and she lied, and I caught her in that lie. Very good-looking woman, everybody liked her, I liked her and everything, and then once she lied, I thought to myself, she has defamed her own character in front of me. She may have been vogue on the outside, but she was vague on the inside. It’s hard once you catch somebody in a lie to appreciate them after that. Politicians as well as preachers can be that way unfortunately. They can give false hope, they can be liars, all for their own self-aggrandizement or motivations for money. I don’t mean to lambaste preachers, I am one, but as Jesus said, «By their fruit you will know them».

By the way they speak, by the way they live. Are they after money? What are their motivations? People love to talk about themselves, as I said. Some people will go on, and on, and on. We have community meetings as a Passionist, sometimes we have over a hundred people, and people will come up to the microphone, and everybody gets a chance to speak at some point during the meeting, depending on what we’re discussing. Some people will get up to the microphone and they will just gobbledygook. It’s like, will you please sit down? You’re not saying anything. And they’ll just go on, and on, and on about nothing. But other people will get right to the point, and they’ll say some truthful things, then they’ll sit down. It’s very persuasive.

Let your yes mean yes and you no mean no. I get angry, I get frustrated when I go to church and I hear gobbledygook. I call it gobbledygook when people just repeat what we’ve heard in the Bible. No stories, no personal experiences, they just tell you what you just heard, and then they go on, and on, and on, they try to land the plane, and they keep taking off, and they finally land the plane 20 minutes later. It’s like, please get to the point. Speak well, be clear, be precise, no more gobbledygook. Pardon me for being upset about that, because I believe the people in the pew deserve so much more. It’s important that we speak truthfully.

Remember, Jesus said the same thing about prayer. He said don’t rattle on like the pagans, thinking that they’re sheer multiplicity of words, they’re gonna be heard. Your Father knows what you need even before you come before him in prayer. But then he gave us this beautiful prayer of the Our Father. It’s right to the point. It’s many different issues and he doesn’t multiply words. Same way in your prayer life. God knows what you need, simply come before him. Sometimes you don’t even need to say a word, just be quiet. Come before God, show him your heart. He sees your heart. When we look at Jesus, he spoke parables, proverbs, stories, personal experiences, in a way that nobody ever has. They went to arrest him one time in the temple, and the guards came back and the religious leader said, «Where is he? Why didn’t you arrest him»?

And it’s because Jesus arrested them with his words. The guard said, «Nobody ever spoke like this man». Jesus spoke truth. He said, «I am the way, the truth, and the life». Nobody has ever spoken like him. He was a great teacher and storyteller. Had a wonderful authority and always spoke the truth. He didn’t mince words. In fact, his words got him into trouble and led to his death, because he spoke the truth and people couldn’t hear it. I have been changed by Jesus’s teachings. I trust that everything he has said is true, and if you’re a disciple, you know that that’s true. His words are truth, and everything he has ever said has come true except for one thing, his second coming, and that will come true.

And heaven will be ushered in, but Jesus also at times was silent. You wanna be a disciple, an authentic disciple? «There are times to speak,» this is from Ecclesiastes, «and a time to be silent». Sometimes Jesus was silent. Remember, before Pontius Pilate he was silent. Before Herod, he was silent. He didn’t throw his pearls to swine as he taught. He didn’t say anything. But as we know, he also spoke in beautiful ways. There’s so much more I could talk about with words, but I think Jesus has said it best.

«By your words, you will be justified. By your words, you will be condemned». You probably haven’t even been thinking about that. You think you just talk, and say things, you get up in the morning. Mature disciples think about what they’re saying, about swears, negativity, gossip, tearing people down, tearing yourself down. Prophesy your future by speaking positive about your life and encourage others. Instead of saying, «I can’t,» say things like, «I can». Instead of saying, «I won’t,» say, «I will». You change your words, you will change your life, you will change your destiny. This series is all about discipleship. I want you to be mature, growing in the Lord, building up other people, and having a glorious future in Jesus. Don’t just live, live with passion.