Taming the Tongue

Thank you. I want you to thank Jack Cornelius today for filling in so wonderfully for us on the keyboard. Go ahead. Thanks, Jack. I'm aware, by the way, that Jack never expects that, but he filled in at the last minute. Dave Fleming's son Andrew has a pretty serious breathing problem. And last night, with all this pollen and everything, the doctors could not control their little guy's breathing. And they put him in the hospital, and they needed to stay with him. So, pray for Dave Kelly and little Drew, that they'd be healed and restored even today. All right, James chapter 3, let's read together. If you don't have a Bible, ask your neighbor if you can look at theirs. If they say no, put your hand up. That's what I thought. Everyone's just so willing. James chapter 3. Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. And it took me a day and a half to get past that verse in my preparation this week. And I'm going to come back to it at another time. We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his 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 person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man. But no man 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 men who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. You've probably noticed by now, if you've been here with us through most of the study of James, that he is a master of the art of painting word pictures. Do you know what a word picture is? A word picture is a way of describing something with an image that will make it alive in your mind. And James demonstrates this ability all the way through his little epistle. Let's review. Those of us who've been here a while will recognize this. If you're newer to us, some of these would be worth your picking up on the tapes that have been made available each week. Chapter 1, verse 6. James talks about the doubter. Remember that? And he described the doubter with the word picture of one who is driven by the wind and the waves. What image does that put in your mind? You see a boat out in a rough harbor. And what's a boat like that going to do? Up and down. It's not going to make any progress. And we see that image. And then he talks about a rich man and how a rich man who trusts in his riches alone is like the grass and flowers that rises up in the spring and then withers in the heat of the summer. Vivid image for us. Chapter 1, verse 18. We spent a whole week looking at spiritual champions. Remember that message? And James talked about the first fruits, bringing in the best of the best and giving it to God. Then we talked a few weeks ago about deception. And we talked about the image. Remember the image of the mirror that James had? And James says, it's like when you hear the word and you don't do it, you're like a person looking in a mirror and seeing an image of himself, seeing what needs to be fixed and then turning and walking away and doing nothing. That was the image that week. Remember the bedhead thing when we talked about that? A couple of weeks ago, Pastor Jeff Small talked about favoritism. He talked about the rich man coming in and we give him the seat right here in the front and we make sure that all his needs are met. And the poor man, we tell him, well, just get in the back. And James paints a picture of that kind of favoritism and not being appropriate in any way in the body of Christ. And then last week, we talked about assurance of faith. We talked about how we can know that we're not going to end up hearing the words of Jesus when we stand in front of him, depart from me, I never knew you. And James painted the word picture of the relationship of our faith and our deeds by saying, if there's a poor, naked, hungry man in your midst and you tell him, just go be warm, be fed, and don't do anything, he said, that's the kind of faith that won't save you in the end. All these powerful word pictures. If you ask me, James, remember he was the half-brother of Jesus? I believe he learned how to do that sitting at Jesus' feet. Jesus was the master word painter, wasn't he? I mean, all the parables, all those... How many images do you think of when you think of the pearl of great price and you think of the lost sheep and the lost coin and all these images of the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed? All those kind of things. So why does James here talk about our words using pictures to describe them? I mean, why would he go to all this trouble? He says in verse 2 that he's going to talk in these next couple of verses about what we say, and he goes on and gives us three word pictures to describe it. Let's look at them. First of all, he says, words are like horses. And he paints a word picture of a horse. And he says to us, a horse is a strong, powerful, muscular beast. And he said, now picture a little four-inch piece of metal. And where do you put that piece of metal? In the horse's mouth. And what's it called? A bit. And if you put that bit in the horse's mouth, no matter how big and strong and powerful, if you put that in the horse's mouth and use it appropriately, you'll control that horse. By the way, James never consulted me on that. I have not found that to always work. Anyone else here ever have nightmare experiences on horses? I'm tempted to go way off here, but I won't do it. Anyhow, you get the picture. Then he talks about a ship, a huge picture in your mind, a huge, like a tall ship that went into New York Harbor a few years ago. And you see that huge ship blown by the wind and riding away, but it's directed by this tiny little rudder. And then he says, picture a great green forest, huge and rolling and sprawling and tall. And then he says, picture a charred, burned-out landscape, all started by a tiny little spark. See, James says, all these great big things, a big horse, a huge ship, and a rolling huge forest, all of them are controlled by a tiny little bit, rudder, or spark. He says, the tongue, he goes back to this, the tongue is like that in your body, invisible, yet powerful, controlling the entire direction of your life. Why does James spend these next several verses talking about the tongue with such vivid language that many of you were even shocked when you read it today? Why? Because James wants us to know that our tongue is the decisive issue when it comes to the matter of the pursuit of holiness. And that the lack of the control of your tongue, listen now, don't miss this, the lack of control of your tongue can sidetrack your spiritual life, big time. I want to look at just two words, since we're going to share communion today, I'm going to abbreviate the message. Two words that James makes very powerfully evident here. The words in a form are perception and conception. Say it with me, perception and conception. James says, number one, you better perceive the power of the tongue. You better see, you better not underestimate what your tongue can do. And then second he says, you better understand what you can conceive with the tongue. The potential that you have in your tongue to birth something of life. In the spiritual realities of your life, James is saying the tongue is just as direct, powerful and influential as a bit or a rudder or a spark. And if you can control your tongue, listen, your whole life can be put in order. Isn't that amazing? The highest privilege we have with our tongue is to worship God. And yet he says at the same time, we find ourselves cursing man. The lowest thing we can do with our tongue. James says it ought not be. First of all, let's just look at this matter of perception. Don't underestimate the power of the tongue. This is Roman number one. Don't underestimate the power of the tongue. I want you to look at a couple of other verses with me in this because it's very, very clear that James knows that the tongue is extremely powerful. Listen to Proverbs 18.21 if you're taking notes. The power of life and death is in the tongue. Proverbs 12.18 says, the power to heal or destroy is in the tongue. Proverbs 12.14 says, the power of reward or damage is in the tongue. Church, I could make this one portion of this scripture a five or six-part series talking about the power of the tongue. I have a book in my library called The Tongue, A Creative Force. Some of you grew up in a milieu of faith where what you said was what you got and that kind of thing. But there's far more to this matter of the tongue than just don't swear or don't profane or don't criticize or do speak kindly. You see, with our tongues, we set in motion real dynamics in the spirit world that change the lives of people around us and if we read carefully today, change our lives as well. Cursing and profanity, you see, aren't just words that we shouldn't hear. They are words that wither the human spirit. When you curse someone, how many of you heard someone curse someone else this week? You probably did. You probably did. You probably heard someone say a vile thing to someone. That not only just, that not only pierces your spirit, that pierces the spirit of that person. And it withers them over time. Likewise, when someone lies and deception comes out of their lips, that literally invites the realm of darkness into a situation. It creates an environment where Satan can thrive. There's power in this. The absence of kindness or encouragement erodes confidence in a person's life. These are real things. I had a counseling session a while back with a person in their early thirties. This was a person who was likable. You would have thought they looked really normal and kind of like they were together. They had two nice kids, a decent job. Things were kind of steady and so on in terms of their career. And this person, we were trying to figure out why they were having such difficulty in some circumstances. And they shared with me, as we talked a couple of times, they said, pointing back a little bit, when this person was eight years old, they went to a family reunion. And a close relative, in the heat of a situation, said these words. He said, you are so dumb. And those words, whether they were said with a specific intent, I don't know. But they blazed on that person's soul the idea that they were in fact inferior. Now, 25 years later, this person is dealing with the byproducts of believing what those words, even though they weren't true about them, what those words said. And if you press this, folks, you all know that I'm talking truth here. You all, some of you here today, have been trying to deal with words that were spoken to you. And they're not just words that are, they're words that had power in them. Life or death. Some of you have been encouraged to go far beyond your normal human potential because someone spoke life. And some of you have never risen to what God intended because someone has spoken death over you. The power of life and death are in the tongue. And James says, we better see this, we better understand the power that's there. And the second verse about perception comes from the lips of Jesus. This is in Matthew 12, 34b. You might want to write this one down. Where Jesus says, what James later illustrates, Jesus says, what comes out of your mouth is no accident. Jesus says, it's out of the overflow or abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. Folks, listen carefully. Jesus says, when we find profanity, when we find slander, when we find criticism or judgment or negativity flowing out of our lips, that's not just an accidental slip of the tongue, as the phrase goes. It is an evidence that inside our hearts something isn't right. I had a conversation with a man over lunch just several months ago. He was an ex-Marine. And he started talking about the political situation in another part of the world. And he was calling those blankety-blank ethnic group that was, in his mind, oppressing another one. And then he said something else about his blankety-blank situation at home. And I finally had to say to him, I said, I find your language doesn't seem to suit what you say about who you are. He said, well, I guess it's just the old Marine Corps in me. I said, now, I think it might be deeper than that. I kind of shocked him when I told him I had a little old Marine Corps in me, too. That didn't necessarily mean that that was there. Because out of the abundance of the heart, our mouth speaks. You see, dear ones, if you have a problem controlling your mouth, you have a much deeper problem than you think. You have a problem with your heart. And you better see it, James is saying. You better perceive the depths of this. James says it this way. He says, look at a spring of water. Is it possible for a spring to be pouring forth salt water once and then fresh? Is that possible? No. Is it possible for a fig tree to bear olives? No. Is it possible for a grapevine to bear figs? No. He's saying something bears what its nature is. And so he says your mouth, your tongue bears what the nature of your heart is all about. So show me a deceiving tongue and I'll show you a deceiving heart. Show me a critical tongue and I'll show you a hateful heart. Show me a negative tongue and I'll show you a fearful, distrusting heart. Show me a filthy tongue and I'll show you a filthy heart. My boys come home and say, oh, you know, you walk in the parking lot at school, Dad, and everybody's saying this and cursing that and doing this. I hear all these words, but they're nice kids. They're nice kids, but their hearts, you see, are far from God. And how many of you heard the name of God taken in vain far more than in praise this week? Let me see your hand. It isn't just colloquialism. It's a heart issue. And show me an overactive tongue, you know, one that's just going on and on and on like this, and I'll show you an unsettled, insecure heart. Because it's out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. On the other hand, show me an encouraging tongue, a fruitful tongue, an edifying tongue, a gentle and kind tongue, a controlled tongue, and I'll show you a redeemed, spirit-led heart that's overflown with the love of God. Why? Because worshipful and healing and affirming words overflow from a transformed heart. And you say, well, Jay, even if I slip up once, do you mean that that's my heart's all wrong? No, I mean this. If you slip up now and then, we all do. Listen, James says you're a perfect man if you never slip up. But if you do slip up, the first thing that strikes you is, oh, God, where'd that come from? I'm sorry, forgive me. We don't justify it. We don't try to rationalize it. We say, Lord, I repent. And I want to go on. I want to restore my relationship with you. So number one, perceive the power of the tongue. It gives life and promise, or it deals death and destruction. And it reveals the heart inside. And then number two, James says, see the conceiving power, the power of the tongue to bring forth, to create. This is a powerful thing, church. I don't know if I can adequately describe it. Does it surprise you? Think back. In the beginning of John's Gospel, John's Gospel says, in the beginning was the word. I mean, all the way back there, God is letting us know that the word, expression, has to do with the nature of God. Speaking has to do with how God gets things done. And God said, let there be light, and let there be the sun, and let there be this. And he spoke it into being. Now, I was troubled. How many of you were troubled as we read through the other day about the references? Would you say the general tone of the reference of the tongue in James was positive or negative? How many would say positive? How many would say negative? It was very negative, wasn't it? Talked about who can control it. I mean, you can go to the zoo and see all these animals control it. You can't control your tongue. I want to focus, however, in the closing moments of this message, not on the negative possibilities, but on the positive ones. And I could stop here. I could spend the whole balance of the time talking about slander and how to control it, or talking about criticism and how to deal with it. I want to talk instead about the best way I know I can share with you in terms of controlling your tongue. I pray you'll receive this because I have found the secret of transforming what comes out of your mouth to be the will in your heart to focus on blessing God, on praise. You see, this is a powerful decision in every one of our lives. My observation after 20 years in full-time ministry is that the two most difficult compartments, if you will, of our life to yield to the Lord, the two of them, the two most difficult are number one, our wallet or purse, and number two, our tongue. You see, our finances are a matter of trusting God for the substance of our life, and our tongue is a matter of trusting Him for the influence of our life. Because what we say oftentimes establishes our relative position of influence in the world. And we learn praise. We learn praise. We don't just come into it. It doesn't just happen to us. It's the primary expression of, it's meant to be by God, how we most please Him in an expressive way. Listen to these psalms. Read them with me. Psalm 71, verse 8, My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long. Second one, O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. I will extol the Lord at all times. His praise will always be on my lips. See, the psalmist is saying, Lord, help me to learn to praise you. Help me to learn it. Because it doesn't come, how many have found that it doesn't come automatically? What do you need to do first? Well, first of all, you need to know that the kingdom of God is in your heart. Because remember, it's a hard issue. If your heart's not right with Christ, forget praise. All that becomes, it's just mimicking. It's just saying what someone else is saying. That doesn't matter to God at all. God looks at the heart. But how many of you have Christ in your heart this morning? You see, even though that's there, praise is still a foreign language to many of us. It's something we haven't learned to speak. Does it fascinate any of you that the gift of the Holy Spirit to the person who asks Him to overflow, what is the gift that the Holy Spirit gives to those who ask Him to overflow their lives? The gift of? What is it? Tongues. Is that curious to anyone? Why wasn't it the gift of claps? Or the gift of jumps. Or the gift of rolling your eyes or nodding your head. God said, No, I want the fullness of the Holy Spirit to be accompanied by the gift of tongues. I wish there was a system that we could all learn. To learn to praise the Lord. Something like, hooked on phonics for praise. There are 44 sounds in the English language for praise. We're going to learn them all and make tapes and sell a million of them. But it isn't that way. We have to will to learn this. We have to pursue times of praise in our lives. If you're new to the life of the Lord here at North Way, you may not know how to begin this. For those of you who aren't new, I'm going to come to you in a moment. But I just wanted to encourage you because you see, until you learn this, you're going to keep spinning your wheels. Your tongue is going to keep biting you. Did you notice that James says, the one that gets damaged the most by your tongue is you? Did anyone see that in there? I mean, look at it with me. He doesn't just say it's others that you hurt. He says this, verse 6. It corrupts the whole person. It sets the whole course of his life on fire. And itself is on fire by hell. On the other hand, the tongue can be a great blessing in your life. It can release the most incredible things of God. Bear with me as I read a brief but important quote from Paul Bilheimer and his book, Destined for the Throne. He says, If the highest function of angelic hosts is praise, it follows logically that the highest function of the human spirit must also be praise. Ever-increasing approximation to the infinitely lovely character of God is the most sublime goal of all creation. This is the summum bonum. Those of you who do any reading at all know that that's the ultimate good. The highest joy, the most exquisite delight, the supreme rapture, and the most ravishing transport of the human spirit is praise. Just as antagonism, hostility, and cursing against God exercises and strengthens all that is most abominable, diabolical and base in the human spirit. And how many of you heard enough stuff coming out of people this week to know that what he's saying is right? When you hear people curse and slander and put down, it just strengthens what's negative. It strengthens death. He says, Just as that happens, so worship and praise of the infinitely lovely God exercises, reinforces, and strengthens all that is most sublime and transcendent and divine in our inner beings. Thus, as one worships and praises, he is continually transformed step by step from glory to glory into the image of the infinitely happy God. And the process can be expected to continue eternally. And so then, how do we do this? Let me just give you five quick suggestions. Write these down. If you're newer to these things, number one, begin in private. Start in a place where no one's going to necessarily listen to you. In your car if you need to do that or in your office, close the door. In a place in your home. But be alone. And then number two, use the psalms. The psalms are a great way to begin to praise God. Read Psalm 92 through 100 or Psalm 145 through 150. These are psalms of declared praise. Then invite the Holy Spirit to come and help give praise to your lips. You'll find he does answer that prayer. Then speak it out loud. Folks, it's okay to speak praise. Men, listen. Men, we tend to kind of shut down a little bit here. We're not used to speaking. And I want to encourage you, men, speak your praise to the Lord. And then number five, come together and join the congregation. We, when we come together, we should be waiting for someone. You know how like at a horse race or a dog race, they sound the bell and the gates go up and everyone goes, they all go running out together. That's how it should be when we start praising the Lord. We should be so ready to go that when the music starts, we're there to praise the Lord together. By the way, Wednesday night is a great time. It's a smaller, more intimate gathering, but if you've not been to a Wednesday night, we learn a lot of new things there in our praise and worship time and our home groups likewise. So, that's for the new people. Live it up for just a second, Debbie. New people, just let me encourage you, that's the way to begin. But let me say something to the majority of you, and that's those of you who think you've heard all this before and are barely staying awake because you need to hear what I'm about to say because I believe you're like me. We tend to all kind of struggle with keeping a course of praise in our life. And when I was preparing this week, I was thinking, Lord, when's the last time I had a 30-minute chunk of time when all I did was just praise you? I was getting in my car to drive over to the airport area for an appointment I had, and I got in the car and I was just kind of thinking, well, let's see, it's a little after 12, I guess I'll turn on the radio and listen to a talk show. And on came this talk show, a little afternoon, and I no sooner heard his voice than I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit. And you know I'm not being weird when I say that. To my spirit, he said, turn it off and talk to me. And that wasn't any political statement. It was a statement to deal with, I was distracted. I needed that 30-minute ride to be with God and just to speak to Him and to praise His name. And I want to say to us, we all have a propensity to drift away from praise. Because the devil fights, he doesn't want you to be transformed. And a lot of you who've been in this movement need to just ask the Lord. You get along with the Lord, Lord, how's my praise life? How's what's coming out of my mouth these days? Is it pleasing to you? Is it edifying? Is it uplifting? And the flesh will always war with the spirit and say, well, you don't need to worry about that. You know what this is about. You've read, you know, there's power in praise and those kind of books. When in fact, dear ones, you may need more than you know to restore that communion with God. Why should we praise God continually? Number one benefit, praise tunes you into what God is saying. Does anyone hear a radio right now? How many believe there are radio waves in this room right now? How would you know? You need to have a receiver, right? You need to have some receiver that you tune in, right? And then you'll hear it. And dear ones, when you begin to praise God, you start to tune into God's frequency. Some of you are wondering, how do I hear the Lord's voice in my life? That's the beginning. Tune in by praising His name. Number two then, praise also activates God's power in your life. It's kind of like God's transmission. Praise takes the power of God from up there in the heavenlies down into your daily life and makes it alive to you on a regular basis. And number three, praise strengthens your faith. I love this story where Paul and Silas are in the prison stocks in the lower prison. Acts 16, you can read about it. We don't have time to turn there. And you know what? They could have prayed, Oh God, please take us out of here. Oh God, deliver us. Oh God, save us. Instead, the Bible says they were singing hymns and praising the Lord. And God did what? He sent an earthquake and He broke their bonds and the jail was opened up and they were set free. And dear ones, listen. Some of us could spend a whole lot more time praising and a whole lot less time asking and God would do a whole lot more answering of our prayers. I believe that. Praise strengthens your faith. And so this is what the Bible says. This is what it means when it says your tongue has the power to conceive life, to be a creative force. And notice this as I close. James says this, With it, out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. You see, if out of our mouth comes praise and blessing, so out of our mouth should come affirmation and encouragement. Have you ever wondered why it's so hard when you're on a phone conversation with your spouse or one of your kids, why it's so hard at the end of the conversation to say, I love you? Ever been to that place where you know you're just about to hang up and you come on and it just doesn't want to come out? Why is that? Why is it hard to say? Because the battle rages inside and praise takes the top off of that and just lets that fountain come out. I just went in with this. Is what's coming out of your mouth a fountain of life? Or is it a volcano spewing death? Slander. Negativity. Judgment. Criticism. James says, brethren, it ought not to be so. Out of your mouth, we should bless the Lord and we should build up one another. Would you stand with me, please?