Sermon Tone Analysis

I was reading some policies at work on Friday.

Our Director wants me to look at some of the UPMC policies and see if our Twin Lakes policies line up with them.

It was interesting reading through some of them.

They have thought of things that we had never thought of or included in our policies.

One of the policies dealt with behavior on the job.

Within that policy it talked about the words that we use on the job.

The policy stated that curse words and vulgar words were not permitted particularly when we are around patients.

The idea behind it is that using those type of words does not present a level of professionalism.

I thought, boy we need that in our offices.

The “F” word flies so much that it almost seems like a normal word.

I was listening to a conversation the other day, and one of the people used that word in every sentence spoken.

I lost count of how many times it was used.

Words can be used to build someone up or tear someone down.

One of the men that worked for my dad when I was growing up was a guy by the name of Ezzie.

As a kid I didn’t know him by his first name – to us kids he was “Snuffy” because of the large amount of Copenhagen he chewed.

Snuffy was probably one of the most vilest and vulgar persons I think I’ve ever met in my life.

As a kid we just thought he was funny.

He was an alcoholic which sometimes caused him problems at work.

The summer before I started college I went to work for the company and usually ended up working with Snuffy.

When he found out that I was heading off to Bible College to become a preacher he made it his personal mission to try to get me off the straight and narrow and also to say as many things to embarrass me as possible.

I really did like him and did pray for him, but it was challenging to work with him.

What was even worse was that he lived in the same town as I did so we car-pooled to work together.

Thankfully it wasn’t a long drive!

So for 2 summers in a row I worked with him and he tried his best to say things to trip me up or embarrass me.

I think it was a game to him.

I continued to pray for him.

Towards the end of his life he said some things to my mom that have left me with some hope that God answered my prayers for him.

Words are powerful.

As much as Snuffy wanted to get to me I tried my hardest with God’s help to live my life before him that hopefully he saw Jesus in my by the way I spoke and acted before him.

The things that we say can have a tremendous impact on other people.

James in our scripture says in verse 9:

Growing up my dad professed to be a Christian.

He was for most of the time I was a teenager a member of the Board of Elders for our local church.

He was well respected by the folks in the church and the community.

At home that was another story – I really hated to be around him.

Sometimes he’d be fun to be around but that could change rather easily and he could tear you down really quickly by the words that he would say.

He wasn’t a patient person so I always dreaded working on any kind of project with him because I knew exactly how it would turn out.

I would be taking the brunt of his frustration as he’d start swearing.

I believe my dad was a Christian during those years but he’d never given his entire life in consecration to God.

It wasn’t until many years later when we were living in Mississippi that I knew that God really had done something in his life.

We were at prayer meeting one Wednesday and the prayer time was open to anyone who wanted to pray and my dad prayed as he did occasionally and during that prayer time he prayed for me.

I don’t remember his exact words but I knew at that moment that God had done a transforming work in his life.

One of the challenges in approaching this section of Scripture is that we can reduce it to a list of things that we as Christians don’t say.

It can become like a parent teaching a child not to say bad words.

We come up with a list of bad words and we memorize them but then we commit to never saying them.

We become very legalistic about it.

I remember in my church that we were taught not only not to say the bad words but there were similar words that we couldn’t say either.

We were taught that you couldn’t say “shoot” because we were really thinking of another word.

You couldn’t say “crap” because we were really saying something worse.

Don’t even think about saying “gosh” because you were really taking God’s name in vain.

Don’t say “darn” because you were really saying something really bad and “heck” was not permitted because you were really talking about the “bad place”.

And if you put some of these words together like “gosh darn it” you were really in trouble and probably had better head straight to the alter because you were in danger of heading straight to “heck”, um that bad place.

As a kid and on into adulthood I was so confused.

I can recall times when teaching Sunday School or even preaching that when I would need to say the word “hell” that I would almost say it in a hushed voice half expecting a lightning bolt from heaven to get me for daring to utter that word.

Can you see how goofy that logic is?

Is that what James was talking about?

Certainly there are words that as Christians we shouldn’t say.

But as I said a couple of weeks ago that we as Christians shouldn’t be known for the things that we don’t do or in this case the things that we don’t say but that we should be known for what we do or by what we do say.

The first case is that of legalism, that keeping a list, not doing this, not saying that.

The second case is the sanctified life, transformed by the Holy Spirit, living a life pleasing to God.

James says that no one can tame the tongue.

He describes the tongue as being small and compares it to some everyday ordinary objects.

A horses bit – it’s put into the horse's mouth and with it you can control the horse.

He points out a ship and tells how big they are and how much wind it takes to move them but they are controlled by a rudder that is small.

James moves on and talks about a forest fire.

What does it take to start a forest fire?

Just a small spark, a small fire, even a carelessly discarded cigarette can start a forest fire.

James really doesn’t have a nice thing to say about the tongue.

He said that from the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

Take for example the story of Balaam and his donkey that we heard about earlier in Numbers chapter 22.

The children of Israel were still on their journey from Egypt to the promised land.

They were camped out right on the Jordan river, just across it from the city of Jericho.

They were in the land of the Moabites and the people were afraid because there was so many of them and that they would take over everything.

The king, Balaak, sent a message to Balaam.

We don’t know a whole lot about Balaam but apparently, he was some type of prophet of sorts.

The Balaak the King wanted Balaam to place a curse on the Israelites.

The custom of cursing an enemy before battle was widespread in the ancient world, and Balaam seems to have gained a reputation as an effective operative who could be relied upon, on the payment of an appropriate fee, to give satisfaction.[1]

Balaam tells the messengers to spend the night and he’ll check the situation out with God and give them an answer.

Somehow God speaks to Balaam and tells him that he cannot put a curse on the children of Israel because they are blessed people.

Balaak doesn’t like the answer he received from the messengers so he sends another group to Balaam ups the offer to him.

The next day and we’re all familiar with the story, Balaam gets up and saddles his donkey and heads off to see Balaak.

An Angel of the Lord comes and stands in the road unseen by Balaam but seen by the donkey.

The donkey sees the Angel and tries to avoid going any closer because it sees the Angel has a drawn sword ready to strike them.

Balaam ends up beating the donkey and it finally just lays down and refuses to get up.

The scriptures tell us that God opened the donkeys mouth so that it could talk to Balaam.

Now I don’t know about you, but if I was riding a donkey and it started talking to me I’m not so sure that I’d have a calm rational discussion with it that Balaam seems to have.

I can almost picture the scene as Balaam looks around to see if someone is playing a trick on him by speaking from behind a wall or rock or tree and it seems like the donkey is just talking.

I don’t know if they had ventriloquists back then, but I’d be looking to see if there was one around.

King Balaak wanted nothing more than for Balaam to place a curse on the Israelites.

If you read Chapters 23 and 24 you’ll learn that not only did Balaam not curse them, but he blessed them not just once, but 4 times.

And then for good measure he curses three different groups of people before heading back home.

Words have power, while Balaak wanted a curse spoken, words of blessing were given.

Words are taken very seriously by those we read about in the Bible.

Think of the prophet Jeremiah.

When God called Jeremiah and appointed him as a prophet his response was “I’m only a child, I don’t know how to speak”.

In Jeremiah 1:9 he wrote:

One writer said that God Sanctified Jeremiah’s mouth at that moment.[3]

Jeremiah wrote in verse 10

He wasn’t going to accomplish that by force, but by faithfully speaking God’s word.

Do you remember about Isaiah when God commissioned him?