Taming the Tongue

Intro

About 14 years ago now when Desiree and I were going to get married we were in pre-marital counseling

Pastor Earl Gotts did that for us.

He had us read this book that is really Good called the 5 love languages

So we read the book so that Desiree and I can express the ways that we love each other effectively

But the one thing I got out of that book was more about parenting than anything else.

The author of the book used this metaphor when he was talking about children.

He said kids are love tanks that need to be filled up every day

The way you do this is with loving words

That just made so much sense to me.

So when I became a parent and even till this day I try and fill my kids love tanks

Every day

And what I discovered is that there are some kids who don’t get their love tanks filled up

In fact these children are running on empty

So when they are teenagers it makes perfect sense that they go to wherever will fill up their love tank the most

Teenagers often become sexually active early because they are just trying to fill up their love tank..

Its amazing…The way to shape a child

The way to best help a child

is to simply top their tank off with love every single day

In fact it trains your child to go back to those original sources of love that they recieved as children

Words are powerful

In the life of children they can literally form a whole life!

In the life of a marriage they can either bring love or resentment

A single word of the president can cause the stock market to soar or to sink

Our words often times play out, they become flesh and grow legs

I mean how many of us have said something and then it came back to bite us?

How many of us have said something and then wished we could immediately take it all back?

How many times have words cut you down?

Sometimes a single word can change your life!

For me it was God speaking, when I was trying to discern a call to ministry....God said: “This is what I have for you.”

That changed my life

Words have a lot of power and, Jesus knew that and His brother James knew that

Before we get to the book of James today I want to look at what Jesus had to say about words…This was such an important topic to Jesus!

And normally I would give you a ton of context for each section of Bible that we are looking at but, I can just tell you in general, Jesus’ disciples and the Pharisees were usually the audience when he was teaching about the words we say.

Luke 6:43-45

The New International Version Chapter 6

A Tree and Its Fruit

6:43,44pp—Mt 7:16,18,20

43 “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. 45 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.

Just as it is the nature of an apple tree to produce apples

The nature of a person comes out in their words!

Jesus is saying listen, whenever you open your mouth, the inside comes out

Jesus is saying if your good then good things will come out

and if your evil, then guess what…Evil things will come out of your mouth.

Even if you are pretending to be good…Even if everyone around you thinks that only goodness comes out of your mouth

Still you know and I know that if you are just pretending, you have got a lot of people fooled

I love how Jesus says that we have good or evil stored in our hearts

What are you storing in your heart?

What are you filling your heart with?

Because it will eventually come out!

Ok Lets move on:

Jesus On Speech

Matthew 12:36-37

36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Does this not haunt you a little bit?

Like how many careless words have I said in my life?

Have you ever done an inventory of all that you have said?

I mean who can do this? Who can take an inventory of everything they say?

And think about this verse for a second:

When we stand before God and are Judged

Either our words will justify us

or our words will condemn us

You stand before God and he puts the word of your life on display before you!

SCARY! Right

So not only do our words reveal our essential nature

We will be accountable for these words!

Next Jesus digs into the teachers of the Law & the pharisees: Look at what he says…I’ll read these next two verses back to back:

Luke 20:45-47

The New International Version Chapter 20

Warning Against the Teachers of the Law

45 While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, 46 “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 47 They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”

Matthew 23:1-2

The New International Version Chapter 23

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.

There is this thread all through scripture that those who teach will be judged more harshly than other people...

Why? Because we put thoughts in people’s heads

we teach people how to live out the Bible

And what we say has to be backed up with how we live or no one will believe us.

In this world, as a pastor your life is on display…People judge you for the dumbest things and that is because so much of my life is just out there for others to see..

So it better be consistent with scripture

My kids better see that preacher dad and play dad are the same dude

So Jesus gets on the teachers of israel…Saying they love to look religious, but then they use their religious image as a cover for evil

They use that religious image as a way to get wealthy

They use that religious image as a way to exploit the poor!

And Jesus has just had enough with this!

The Rabbi’s teach that if you give a wrong interpretation of scripture or that if you teach one way and live another way then there is divine punishment coming your way

This is from something called the Mishnah which is basically rabbinical commentary:

Rabbinic Thinking:

Commentary on the Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament Chapter 1

To expound Torah wrongly is to promote the transgression of its precepts. If, as the divine retribution for doing so, a teacher is exiled to a place of evil waters, i.e. a place where there is no sound teaching of Torah, he may perpetuate his error, so that those who come after, i.e. learn from him, may drink, i.e. receive his teaching, and die, i.e. fall into sin for which death is the divine punishment. In that case, it will be found, i.e. it will result, that the name of God has been profaned.

Ok So there are two threads of teaching on the words that we speak:

If your a teacher, watch out, your words matter…and I want to take that a step further…in our world where everyone wants to be an “influencer” Hey what your life looks like matters

Our essential nature is revealed in the words that we say

James 3:1-12

The New International Version Chapter 3

3 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 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.

3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 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. 5 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. 6 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.

7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

I mean James is basically telling his church what his brother said right?

He is saying that words set you on a trajectory in your life that you feel obliged to follow

Words have great power

He is saying that not many of you should be teachers of God’s word! Why?

Because if you don’t have a tight reign on your own words…then how can we trust you with God’s words?

Maturity and experience teaches us when to speak and when not to speak

The rabbis used to say that the first sin after the fall was done in words…Adam blamed it all on Eve…So they would say when you go before God, let your words be few

We have to understand that as teachers we are shaping other people’s perspective on the Bible and on who God is

I love how James says that our tongues are like rudders in great ships or a spark in a forest

It is so true that just the smallest of words can set the world on fire

The smallest of words can set our course of life

So the question that I have for us, if that if our tongue has that much power over our lives,

What are we doing to make sure that we are using it wisely?

Some of us need to practice saying fewer words

Some of us need to make a discipline of stopping and thinking before we talk

And its not just about training our tongue…Its about training our hearts for goodness. Because This is Jesus’ point and I think it is James’ point too…They had this metaphor that the body is like this great storehouse for either goodness or evil

And guess what..>If your life is organized around evil…Guess what will come out of your mouth?

But if your life id daily organized around Jesus…Then Guess what will come out of your mouth?

This is especially true if you have any kind of influence

I have said it so many times here but it is worth repeating

When I was a kid we stopped going to church because the pastor’s private life was not consistent with what he was teaching on Sunday mornings

We stopped going to church for a long time

Maybe your not a pastor but people know you as a christian

Therefore you have influence for Christ

Are people praising God’s name because of you or are they saying…This is why I don’t go to church

The Apostle Paul was just so straight up about this with the Church in Rome:

Romans 2:21-24

The New International Version Chapter 2

21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” o

Paul is borrowing a line from Ezekiel...

Ezekiel was talking about how God kicked his own people out of their land because of their behavior

Ezekiel was saying…the nations see you walking away from your land in defeat and they know your God kicked you out…so by your own life you must have a weak and powerless God...

What Jesus is saying, what James is saying , what Paul is saying and what Ezekiel is saying…IS if you talk and pray one way but then go off and live another way then you are simply revealing that your God is weak and powerless

It means the God you serve doesn't even have the power to change your own life

The God you serve might have an influence on your speech, but if he doesn't influence your business ethics then that is not a powerful God at all

The God you serve might change the way you talk, but if doesn’t mature you into the kind of person who has a consistent life…then is God powerful

See Words matter and your life matters because at the heart of what you are doing when you speak is revealing whether or not God has any real power in your life!

Did you catch that????????

“When you speak, you reveal whether or not God has any power in your life.”

Wrap-up

As we wrap this up

I think the real question here is, when you speak, do you reveal that you have a life worth imitating?

We tend to think that we need God to transform our words or that, if we all just watched our mouthes then we would be more aligned with the Bible

but the heart of this passage is not about making a swear jar

Our words do need to be transformed, but you don’t do that by making a list of words you can not say

James’ argument and Jesus’ argument is that our goal shouldn't be to change the words we say....but the nature of our very being

Yeah you might be able to force new words out of your mouth but you can not force a new condition in your heart

When Jesus has a grip on your life…And the words you say are consistent with the life you live , then you revel a powerful God

One who has the power to transform lives!

Challenge

You might arrange your Sunday around coming to church on a Sunday

But how do you arrange the rest of your week?

You must arrange your life so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy and confidence in your ever day life with Jesus” -Dallas Willard

What would your words look life if your life was arranged in such a way?

We often times, without thinking about it and by default organize our own lives around ourselves

Then the words we say become increasingly selfish.

The words we say reveal what we organize our lives around.

Do you organize your life around Jesus? Around his words?

One day there was a lot of people abandoning Jesus…and Jesus looked up at Peter and said..Hey, don’t you want to go too? And I love Peter’s reply...

The New International Version Chapter 6

68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

Do you organize your life around Jesus’ words?