Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.15UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.13UNLIKELY
Fear
0.11UNLIKELY
Joy
0.58LIKELY
Sadness
0.54LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.39UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.73LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.95LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.41UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.19UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.67LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.57LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction:
James is such a practical book that touches on a lot of life’s most crucial issues.
This week we are going to look at the first 12 verses dealing with our tongue.
James has a lot to say about the tongue.
James starts off by giving a warning to teachers.
They will get the greater judgement by what they say.
This is a sobering reminder if we teach and preach the Word that we need to be careful how we use our words.
Illustration: Words can breathe life in to someone else or they can cut down and hurt someone.
Thesis:
Overview of Points:
Point 1: Warning to Teachers
Don’t be over anxious to teach, because you know we will have a greater condemnation.
He says in verse 2 that the ability of a believer to control the
tongue is a test of that believer's spiritual maturity.
Sub points:
I read somewhere that the average person in a day's time
will speak about thirty thousand words; now I think I know a few who
exceed that number but that's probably a pretty good average for most
people.
Now you think about that.
The ability to control what we say
is a pretty good indicator of our maturity in the Lord.
Now, you
know, Jesus said that we're to be very careful about our words because
Jesus said out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
So James uses a series of
illustrations.
The first two he uses illustrate the directive nature
of the tongue.
For instance in verse 3 he says the tongue is like a
bit in the horses' mouths.
Now you know a bit in a horse's mouth is
just a few ounces of steel and yet that small bit, those few ounces of
steel are able to control a half-ton horse.
In fact sometimes you can
just see a little child up on top of a huge horse and yet that little
child is able to guide and direct that horse and determine where that
horse is to go because there is a bit in the horse's mouth.
Now James says that the way the tongue is, the tongue can direct
your whole life.
And that's certainly true isn't it?
Just one word,
just one bit of a word can direct life.
Have you ever thought of the
difference that a word can make?
I mean here is a man and he is
standing before the judge, anxiously awaiting the word, and the judge
looks at the man and he says, "Guilty," and that one word changes the
direction of that man's life forever.
Or here is a young lady on a
moonlit night, it is a romantic night indeed, and she is there and the
young man proposes marriage to her and she says, "Yes", and that one
little word "yes" changes her life and the direction of her life
forever.
So, ladies and gentlemen, we ought to be very careful about
our words because our words direct us.
Like a bit in a horse's mouth
it directs our whole life.
That's why we ought to be very, very
careful about what we say.
You know, for most of us, when we were
babies it took us about two years to learn how to use our tongue and
then it's taken us about fifty years to learn how to keep our big
mouth shut.
Amen?
It's a whole lot easier to learn how to use your
tongue than to learn when not to use your tongue.
The Bible says
there is a time to speak and there is a time to keep silence; so we
must be very, very careful about the use of the tongue.
I heard about a guy who was fishing one day and there was a lady
sitting over there by him and she was just yak, yak, yak, yak, yak.
I
mean just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk; he could hardly fish for
her, she was just constantly chattering.
Well in a little while he
finally, in spite of it, got a fish on the hook and caught the fish
and threw it over on the shore on the side of the bank, and the woman
looked at it and she said, "Poor fish, poor fish."
And the man said,
"Well it would have never been caught if it kept it's big mouth shut."
And, you know, there are probably a lot of us who would never have
gotten ourselves entangled in some very bad situations if we had
learned to keep our mouth shut.
So the tongue is like a bit in a
horse's mouth, it can direct your life.
But then the second illustration is in verse 4 and he says here
that the tongue is like the rudder of a ship, and he's saying that
just with the rudder of a ship a helmsman, (a governor, the King James
says), with just the touch of a hand can direct that ship.
I mean
here is a ship that weighs tons and yet just a relatively small rudder
can guide that ship, direct that ship.
You see, the rudder on a ship
can guide that ship to the safety of the shore, or the rudder on that
ship can direct that ship to destruction on the banks, so, you see,
that's the way the tongue is, the tongue has the ability to direct a
person's life.
Think about the tongue of a Billy Graham preaching the
unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ, the glorious gospel of our
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9