Inside Out - The Tongue

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Inside out – Watch what you eat – James 3:2-12, Luke 6:43-45

Please stand for the reading of God's word.

We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

This is the word of the Lord.

Audience: Thanks be to God.

You may be seated.

Look lets be real. Most of you in the room know me. I have probably done this to you, you have probably experienced this, or maybe you just aren’t surprised. But man, sometimes I can say some pretty stupid stuff. 9 timeout of 10, I am speaking in a sarcastic manner, and not everyone gets that. I think that over half of the reason people think I am funny is that I speak what others are thinking, but aren’t always willing to say. Which can be a little dangerous.

A love language of mine is to mess with the people I love, but I know that isnt always the most helpful. And over the years, I have tried my best to watch my mouth, because it can really get me into trouble if I don’t. Just ask Aubrey, there isn’t one day that goes by that I don’t say something silly, or even hurtful, even if I don’t really mean to. Especially over these past few weeks, when I have gotten little to no sleep. And I am not even going to give an example of this, because you know and I know there are endless times you can recall.

            Which is interesting because this is the second week of a 3-week series called Inside Out, which, if you didn’t know, our very own Mason Hill made the artwork for. Is it super cool, right? The prayer and the aim of this series is to help you understand that faith is not just something we talk about once a week, like a subject in school, but a lived-out experience. Faith in christ, transformation in Christ, is something that takes work, and honestly, most of our lives. We know that we are broken. We know that Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, but how do we take that knowledge and let the Holy Spirit renew us from the inside out?

            Last week, my boy Greg did a fantastic job, I mean, such a good job, talking about how this transformation has to start with our minds. If we are going to look like Christ on the outside, then we have to, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, change the way we think. To be like Christ, we have to think like Christ. He talked about how, as Christians, we need to, as 2 Corinthians 10:1 says, take every thought captive. We need to recognize the lies that enter our minds and replace them with truth. And not “your truth, my truth, or your parents’ truth,” all of that is mumbo jumbo. I am talking about the Truth that is the word of God. The only truth that is actually and always true. We know who we are, what we should do, and what Jesus did because of the revelation of God’s word given to us.

And when we do this, we can, as Romans 12:2 says, renew our minds to look more like Christ.

            Which leads us to the tongue. That weird muscle that’s exposed. It's wet and slimy and hopefully clean, because you definitely brush it every night, right?

I’ll stop describing it and tell you what James 3:2-7, using Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, says about the tongue.

If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you’d have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.

3–5        A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!

5–6        It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.

7–10       This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer.

Did you hear what James is saying? If you can find a person who speaks nothing but truth (a person perfectly like Christ), then you have found a perfect person! He’s saying, “ Look, man, this doesn’t exist!”

But how could something so small be the reason good or bad happens? I mean, think of your tongue in comparison to your hand, or your head! It’s tiny! Like the rudder of a ship or a bit in a horse's mouth, it is tiny but controls everything. I love how Peterson paraphrases this: “A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!” The NIV says it this way: “Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts.

Now the cool thing about this piece of text is that normally I would use some sort of analogy to help you understand it, but James does that for us already. So, in light of that, I found this video that I think can help you visualize what is happening here.

Show video

The tongue, even though it is incredibly small, can set the agenda for the entire body. We have learned how to tame huge animals and beasts, yet we can’t tame the tongue in our own mouths.

The tongue is like a small spark in a forest, with one little tiny flame, and the entire ecosystem can be burnt down.

And you know what I mean here. What comes out of your mouth changes what’s happening around you. You could, in your mind, want to obey your parents, but out of your mouth comes hurtful and mean things you didn’t even know you were capable of saying.

You have seen the effects of your own words when you say something to someone you didn’t mean, and now you and that person are no longer friends. Maybe you have been on the receiving end of hurtful words. Maybe from your parents or a loved one, or someone you thought you could trust.  

            And like arrows, they pierce your heart and dig in deep. The words hit your stomach like poison, and you can’t seem to shake them.

And trust me…I know what it’s like to be in school. I know what it’s like to be in a group of friends, where when all the adults are gone, the words that come out of your mouth would make your grandma pass out in disappointment. I know what it’s like to be the church-going Christian who goes to church camp every year, was baptized when he was nine years old, and says a curse word every other word. I know what it’s like to be one person on Sunday and Wednesday and a completely different person on the bus coming back from a tournament.

James 3:9-10 in the NIV says this: “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.”

Do you see the problem with this? Do you see why this isn’t okay? If we claim to be followers of Christ, you know, the one that you all cried over and felt convicted of last Friday as we remembered the fact that he died on the cross for you? That one? If we claim to be followers of the God who has given us through his son, a model on how to live, yet we go out into the world and make ourselves look like fools using language you would get banned for using on Fortnite?

Verses 11 and 12 say this, “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”

James is saying, can two opposites produce the other? Should a professing Christian produce hate and harm from his mouth? Should someone who calls themselves a little christ, who is supposed to act in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, say those kinds of things? Use their words to tear down when they were called to build people up?

What’s sad is I know at one point in your life you might have been convinced by this, but you have now spent so much time steeped in this kind of talk, and been surrounded by it, that you don’t even notice it, until you accidentally slip in an embarrassing way. Lets be clear. Tonight’s focus is not about you not cussing anymore. That’s honestly just you making yourself look childish and immature. What I am talking about, what James is talking about, what God is talking about, is the fact that if we are to be Christians, if we are to be ambassadors for christ, as our name Embassy implies, then we should speak in a manner worthy of the Lord.

What is our entire life’s purpose?  Side note - Some of you are tripping about what you are supposed to do with your life cause you are about to graduate. This is it, so listen up: to become more like Christ. To align our body, our mind, our soul, our heart with God’s. To do what God would do if he were us.  Your purpose in life is to become like Christ. And you can do that in any setting. The navy, the church, your middle school football team, your high school choir concert, or even in the living room of your house. Being a Christian is not just saying yes at church camp and getting baptized. It’s not just showing up to church every Sunday and to the youth group on Wednesday; it’s a whole-life transformation type of thing. And one of the first steps is to try to watch your mouth.

Luke 6:43-45 says this “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes or grapes from briers. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Let me repeat that last verse “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”

The mouth speaks what the heart is full of. For our purposes, lets talk about the stomach.

If you have been around long enough, you know what I am about to say with a bit of a twist, and excuse my crassness here.

If you go around eating rotten hot dogs all the time, what’s going to happen? You will, whether you like it or not, whether you mean it or not, puke rotten hot dogs all over the place. You will walk up to your mom, after she has said some rude things, and puke nasty hot dog everywhere.

Your friend says something mean to you? You Barf on the floor in front of their shoes. Someone starts a rumor about you? You blast them on social media by throwing up nasty, rotten hot dogs all over the place.

But say you eat a well-cooked hot dog. Something you know and trust to be good. Something that doesn’t have all those bad things in it, but is full of life and truth? No preservatives, but just pure and divine? What will you do then? No longer will you go around looking for a throw-up bag, but rather you will, from your stomach and heart, speak only good, love, and truth.

            You following? If your mouth speaks what your stomach is full of, then you need to watch what you eat. If you are constantly surrounding yourself with people who speak poorly, then you, too, will start acting like those people. If you watch the kind of things, your grandpa might have a heart attack over, then you will think and act in a similar way. If you only ever listen to things that curate your imagination to think that life is all about drugs, money, and sex, then that’s what you will start to believe. You hearing me?

Look. I’m not telling you to burn your Rock and Roll CDs or stop watching Marvel movies like early 90’s youth ministry. What I am telling you to do is just to be cautious about what you ingest. Whether you realize it or not, it is shaping you. It is molding your mind. And therefore your words.

So think twice before you speak. Don’t be like 18-year-old me and say things without a filter. Be cautious of your words and the way you use them. Be aware of the things you are ingesting.

If your words reveal whats on the inside, and your insides are shaped by what you take in, then here’s way to start this week.

1st step is – Count your Calories.

is to become aware of what you are eating. Just like in a diet, you start counting calories? Start counting the things you are eating that you know aren’t transforming you into Christ. start paying attention to what you’re taking in. Do this for a whole day and write it down.

2nd step – Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

 ask yourself, and talk it out with a trusted friend, why you might want to do those things? What is your motivation behind watching that, listening to that, or talking that way? Is it fear of missing out? Being ostracized for being different? Or something else?

3rd step – Replace it with something better

Take what you were doing, and replace it with something that aligns with God’s heart. Maybe it’s listening to a different kind of music. Maybe it’s finding a clean show to watch. Maybe it’s setting boundaries with certain people, or choosing to spend more time with people who push you toward Christ. Who knows? But you can’t ever transform from the inside out if you don’t change what you are doing.

This isn’t about becoming a better version of you. This is about letting Jesus change you from the inside out.

Because friends, if we truly believe in the Savior of the world. The one that we just celebrated his resurrection three days ago, if we truly believe that he loved us so much that he died on the cross for us, and it is now our purpose to represent him here on earth? To bring little pockets of heaven here and now, until he returns? Then we ought to watch what we eat, and watch our mouths.