I don’t know how many of you have heard about this this week
• Don Imus made a comment that has stirred up the media, and everyone from Hillary Clinton to Oprah Winfrey .
• What was happening was the Rutgers women’s basketball team had just lost the NCAA championship game.
• And Imus was saying how ugly the girls on this team were
• I think they were playing Kentucy and He said how good looking their girls were
• But he made the comment that the Rutgers women’s basketball team were"nappy-headed hos"
• Imus, 66, had a long history of inflammatory remarks.
• But something struck a raw nerve when he targeted the Rutgers team - which includes a class valedictorian, a future lawyer and a musical prodigy
• Imus was initially suspended for two weeks
• But outrage kept growing and advertisers kept droping their accounts
• From his CBS radio show and its MSNBC simulcast, which was canceled Wednesday.
• Even though He issued repeated apologies as protests intensified it wasn’t enough
• Imus, who was once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine
• Imus who was a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame,
• Was fired Thursday by CBS
• A stunning end for one of the nation’s most prominent broadcasters.
James 3:1-12 - “Bite Your Tongue”How our speech can get us in trouble and Why
The ability to speak is a wonderful thing,
• But how we use that ability can often make a tremendous difference in both our own life and the lives of others.
• Everywhere we turn in life there are voices.
• Some are voices of encouragement, some are voices of destruction
• Some are words of love and compassion,
• Some are words of hate.
• Words are a powerful force
• And the influence that our words Shows us
• Is that we need to be careful with what we say and how we say it.
Read James 3:1-12
The Words we use reveal what is really in our heart.
• Words are a perfect indicator of our true character.
• The words we speak, the things we talk about, and the manner in which we say them
• Show what kind of person we are to everyone around us
• When you think of it this way,
• What we say and how we say it are incredibly important.
Our problem is that we don’t always control our words.
• Our manner of speech often comes back to haunt us.
• How many times do we show symptoms of “hoof and mouth disease”?
• I can’t tell you how many times that I have opened my mount and inserted my foot,
• And I know as soon as I do it I shouldn’t have
• And I also know that most of you have done the same thing.
After reading these verses one idea jumps out at me.
• Verse 2. States the obvious
• That everybody stumbles. We all make mistakes.
• The Christian life isn’t about not falling down anymore,
• It is about understanding that there is a reason to get back up.
• Notice James doesn’t point a finger at the offenders without including himself:
• We all stumble in many ways.
• Nothing seems to trip a believer more than a dangling tongue.
• If a believer is never at fault in what he says then he’s perfect,
• He is fulfilled, He’s matured, He’s a complete person
• He is able to “bridle” his whole body.
• Spiritual maturity requires a tamed tongue.
The tongue may be small but it is influential.
• Three illustrations James uses make this point clear
• The bit and the horse, / the rudder and the ship, / and the spark and the forest.
• The argument is clear.
• With the first two / the bit and the rudder /
• Both must be under the control of a strong hand.
• The expert horseman keeps the power of the steed under control,
• And the experienced pilot steers the ship through the storm.
After looking at these 2 James
• Now compares the tongue to a spark which can set a forest on fire.
• James is not speaking of the tongue as a source of language.
• He is thinking of the tongue as something corrupted by the fall.
• Many, if not all, sins begin with a word.
• It may be spoken outwardly or silently ‘spoken’within
We also see that the tongue is hard to tame.
• James compares the ability to tame animals with the inability to tame the tongue.
• We can master wild beasts Lions, Tigers, Bears (O My)
• We can train Whales, Dolphins.
• But we cant tame the tongue
• Even the most perfect saint experiences times when he or she wishes they could take back into their mouths words they have just spoken.
• But you cant put toothpaste back in the tube
• And we cant take back our words once they have been spoken
The tongue, then, is restless.
• Restlessness is a characteristic of the demonic world and evil,
• While peace is a characteristic of God and his good kingdom.
Now James adds another examples.
• In church (Because he is writing to believers) we use our tongues to praise God.
• But then we turn around and use that same tongue to speak evil of about other people, And they are made in God’s image.
• In James’s day the king or emperor would set up his statue in the cities of his realm.
• If anyone insulted or cursed the statue,
• They were treated as if they had cursed the emperor to his face,
• Because the statue was the image of the emperor.
• Therefore insulting a person, made in God’s image, is like insulting God Himself.
James now gives two final examples to drive his point home.
• The first is drawn from the land of Israel
• In the dry Jordan Valley
• One might see, in the distance, a stream flowing down the valley wall .
• And as One heads towards it they are hoping for fresh water.
• Sometimes the water is fresh and good. (Drinkable, Refreshing, Thirst quenching)
• Sometimes it is full of minerals (Like salt) and is undrinkable.
• But one thing is sure, and this is what James is saying
• Two types of water cant flow out of the same spring.
Likewise one does not get a different type of fruit from a tree or vine
• We don’t go to an apple tree and expect to find an orange
• If we are speaking insults or curses, than this is our nature.
• And our praises of God are a coverup,
What James is saying is
• What we say and how we say it is really a heart issue.
• Since Jesus’ plan was to change us from the inside out –
• It only makes sense that the path to perfection starts in the heart
• And our mouth can only speak what is in our hearts
What James is saying.
• How can we come to church and use your mouth (tongue) to praise God
• And then use that same mouth to hurt others by the things we say?
• Doesn’t that seem….wrong?
• That we go home (After worship) and curse our spouses, and our children by how we talk to them.
• That we go to work on Monday and curse the people we work with
• Through sarcasm, And gossip
• How can we say things to our fellow man that can curse their entire lives.
• After praising God who made man in His image.
If our heart is not healthy then our entire body is going to suffer,
• This occurs both from the physical perspective and the spiritual perspective
• This is what James is talking about.
• If our hearts are spiritually diseased, then your mouth will show it
• And if your mouth isn’t showing a heart driven by Heaven,
• Then it will prove to be a heart set on fire by Hell.
Jesus tells us in Mathew 12: 34-37
34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36 But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
This may be the best reason of all to watch our tongue
• Jesus tells us - For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.
• We are going to have to give an account for all the words we have ever spoken
• One day we will have to stand before God and Listen to all the words of slander, and hate and gossip that we have spoken.
• Do you remember standing before your parents as a child and being confronted with the facts. (Someone saw you do something / told your parents / you had to stand and listen)
• It will be so much worse than that.
The direct result of a changed heart is loving words.
• If I am not speaking words of love to those in my family or those around me,
• Then it is probably because I am not hiding enough of God’s word in my heart
• And it is getting in the way of my relationships.
This can be a real problem
• In our efforts to become the church that God wants us to be,
• We can’t allow something as simple as the way we talk to each other
• Get in the way of showing the love of Christ.
When we really begin to allow God’s word
• To teach us exactly what God has done for us,
• It should change us.
• Our hearts become so absorbed with the overwhelming love of God
• That this love begins to overflow and pour out of our mouths onto people.
• As followers of Christ our hearts have been transformed by love.
• James is telling us that a healthy spring produces fresh not bitter water…
• Likewise it is impossible for a healthy, God captured heart to produce cursing that comes out of our mouths.
As I examined myself this week in light of this text,
• I was overwhelmed with conviction that sometimes my family who should get the best of my words, too often gets the worst.
• This morning I confess that I am guilty of saying things to my family that I shouldn’t say.
• And that is hard to admit. But it is true.
So what do we do?
• Remember verse 8 ? It says “No man can tame the tongue for it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”
• I don’t know if you noticed this on the first time through.
• I didn’t. But notice that verse 8 says NO MAN can tame the tongue.
• In and of ourselves, we are doomed. We cannot pull this off. But God Can
Remember that what comes out of our mouths comes from our h________.
Ps 19:14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Again here is the connection between our mouths and our hearts.
• But the Psalmist gives us this idea that meditation of the heart
• And what our heart meditates on
• Is going to have a lot to do with the words that come out of our mouths.
So what should our hearts meditate on?
• Ps 119:11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
• Ps 119:12 Praise be to you, O LORD? teach me your decrees.
• Ps 119:13 With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.
Some of us have a problem with this.
• And the scriptures teach us that God, through his Word,
• Is the only one who can help us with it.
• Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech always be with grace…”
Some of us need to repent of this and ask God to reshape us
• For some of us it has been a life time of critical sarcasm.
• Some of us are cynical
• Some of us have a problem with pride
• Some of us are just destroying our families by the way we are talking to them.
• And we need to ask God to forgive us and help us
So if you are here and God’s word has led you to a decision that needs to be made,
Then ask God to forgive you and let Him heal you today.
