Sermon Tone Analysis

If anyone wanted a garden, I hope you planted it by now.

Planting season is basically over.

Planting is a lot like math.

If you plug the same numbers into an equation, you will always get the same answer.

2+2=4.

Well, in planting, if you put carrots into the ground.

Carrots will grow.

If you put tomatoes in the ground, tomatoes with grow.

It’s great!

The same is true of our tongue.

What we put in to our heart and mind affects what will come out.

There are many people who spend a lot of time gardening, to make sure they have the best crop of what they want.

Oh, that we would spend as much time tending the garden of our tongue.

The Tongue is Dangerous

Two weeks ago, we studied how the tongue was dangerous.

James tells us that the tongue is powerful for good or destruction.

The tongue is perverse: it can corrupt our whole life.

The tongue is full of poison: more fearful than anything else on the planet.

The tongue is polluted: though we might praise God with it, we also turn against our brothers and sisters in Christ.

None of us, if we are honest, are perfect with our tongue.

James tells us in , that we all struggle with our tongue.

If we would keep it in check, we could be perfect.

But, we don’t.

We can’t.

The tongue cannot be tamed by a human.

We who are Christians, many times, take a great deal of pride in what we don’t do and what we do do.

We try to keep our outward actions clean and pure.

We make sure that we are not sexually impure, that we are no drunkards, that we don’t steal, that we don’t kill.

We give to charity.

But, instead of fearing our tongue: we give it free reign.

We make our outward actions seem so good, but we don’t watch our tongues.

The tongue is dangerous.

Two weeks ago, we talked about how teachers, both official and unofficial teachers, need to watch their tongues because they will be held to a strict judgment.

This week, we will talk about everyone.

The tongue is dangerous: more dangerous than a knife, a sword, a gun, but we all treat it carelessly.

We Use the Tongue Wrongly

There are a myriad of ways we use the tongue wrongly.

James refers to all these ways in this passage, though not by name.

I could talk about boasting, lying, angry words, cursing, arguments, coarse joking, etc.

But, I’m not going to.

Instead, I will talk about 3 ways Christians tend to use their tongue wrongly, and sweep it under the rug.

Gossip

This is the social sin of American Christians.

It has become so ingrained in our culture that many of us have forgotten what gossip actually is.

If you pick up a Merriam-Webster dictionary, you will find the following definitions:

c: a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others

2 a: rumor or report of an intimate nature

Gossip can be rumor, or it can be facts.

Both.

Many people have the false impression that gossip has to be false.

If they are telling true statements, they must not be gossiping.

False!

The wise man says that a gossiper is betraying a confidence: they are telling something that is true!

The Bible talks about gossip throughout it.

Proverbs has a lot of warnings to distance oneself from a gossip.

Paul puts gossip along the same lines as murder in

We, as humans, love talking about people.

We want to know what is happening.

What good thing has happened to Aunt Ethel?

What did Uncle Elmer do wrong this time.

The first thing a college student does when they are home for the break is get caught up in all the gossip.

They might not want it, but they will be told it by any and all.

All the stories told might be true, but they are gossip none-the-less.

The stories are intimate.

They betray a confidence.

They are told by someone who is not the first party.

Sure, Uncle Elmer did that, but is it our story to tell?

We, as Christian, spiritualize gossip.

We say that we are sharing prayer requests.

Unfortunately, many prayer groups become gossip circles, as intimate facts about people, using their full name, is spread to all who might hear.

One person said it this way: a true prayer warrior doesn’t need to know all the facts, knowing that our sovereign all-knowing God knows everything all ready.

A gossip is the one who wants to share the facts and know the facts all ready.

We should all be careful when we share prayer requests that we are sharing only that which we have permission to share.

If we don’t have permission, keep it vague!

A

We will also spiritualize gossip, saying that we are venting so that we do not respond to a situation wrongly.

We all need an emotional vent, whether it is through prayer, or a journal, or a close friend.

However, when in our venting we share personal facts about someone else without that persons permission, we are gossiping.

Or, we are venting so that we do not respond to a situation wrongly.

Another mode of gossip that has sprung up recently is spreading news that we read on the internet.

One commentator said this:

In America, we cherish freedom of speech.

But with freedom comes responsibility.

Responsible citizens in a democracy, and Christians in any form of society, must learn what is helpful and even necessary to say, even when unpleasant—such as in challenging injustice against others—and what remains only destructive.

Evangelical Christians have at times had a poor track record of speaking the truth in love in situations such as these, even as more liberal Christians have often failed to speak the truth in love.

And almost all people suffer from the tendency to pass on interesting rumors to others without scrupulously checking their accuracy, especially in the Internet age, which produces a torrent of misinformation, half truths, and personal opinions all subtly mixed together with genuine facts for just about any Google search that one executes!

Whatever the mode of gossip, God has told us not to do it, for the good of the unity of the body.

Slander

Hand in hand with gossip is slander.

Slander is

1: the utterance of false charges or misrepresentations which defame and damage another’s reputation

We see this definition played out in Scripture.

Lev

Slander can be speaking “critically of another person with the intent to hurt.”

When Jesus speaks of the danger of our tongue, he touches on slander.

False testimony is to speak inaccurately about something.

Slander is to bring false charges or misrepresentations.

In today’s emotionally charged environment, we are all tempted to slander, whether we realize that we are doing it or not.

Perhaps an illustration would be helpful.

Could I have a volunteer?

Person A said something that I found offensive, maybe I overheard it, maybe it was said to me, maybe it was related to me.