James 3:1-12 – Taming the Tongue, can it be done?
Let’s talk about the tongue. I thought about bring out a real tongue for us all to see and feel, but then I thought again. Actually, we can do a little show and tell…turn to the person closest to you and show them your tongue, then take a look at theirs. Unless they’ve been drinking blue cool-aid or some coloured frosting, their tongue probably looks similar to yours, right? Pink in colour, weird in texture, and we won’t ask about the breath. Okay, tongues back in your mouths. It’s been said it’s the only muscle in the body connected at just one end…no wonder it’s described as a loose canon! Actually the tongue is a group of muscles, working in conjunction with each other to help us taste, speak and eat. Can anyone do any special things with their tongue? We don’t necessarily need to see! Here are some pictures of what some people can do with theirs, or what they’ve done TO theirs (picture)
We hear all sorts of advice on how to use the tongue, such as these:
• Don’t speak with a forked tongue. In other words, don’t say one thing to one person and something different to another person…don’t be a liar!
• We’ve all heard a parent or teacher tell us, ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say…don’t say anything at all.’ So true!
• Have you ever suffered from ‘foot-in-mouth’ disease? You open you mouth to say something and end up wishing you had never said a word.
• Improve your ability to speak clearly by using tongue twisters:
• She sells sea shells by the sea shore.
The shells she sells are surely seashells.
So if she sells shells on the seashore,
I’m sure she sells seashore shells.
• Irish wristwatch.
• The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.
With our tongue we can:
• Taste salty or sweet, sour or bitter.
• Praise God or praise ourselves
• Tell the truth or tell a lie
• Encourage a neighbour or gossip about them
• Pierce it with a silver stud, perhaps some people should just staple it closed?
• Bless our children or yell at their mistakes
• Whisper a prayer, proclaim an eloquent speech, or just boast about ourselves
• Testify about what God has done in our lives or remain silent on all issues relating to God
• Sing a song of praise to God or sing about what kind of partner we wish we had
• Belittle a child, a best friend, or our spouse
• Encourage one another in the Lord or just talk about the weather
James teaches us that the tongue is a pretty hard thing to control. And he has some stern warnings about using it in ways that are of no value to anyone. Let’s read the first 12 verses of James chapter 3.
Taming the Tongue
1Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2We 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.
3When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4Or 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. 5Likewise 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. 6The 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.
7All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11Can both fresh water and salt[a] water flow from the same spring? 12My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
That first verse always gives me a bit of holy fear when it comes to sharing the Word of God with you folks each week. I don’t take lightly the task of teaching what God has shown me in the Word from week to week. It does put a bit of pressure on knowing that what I say can influence how all of you understand God’s word. But my prayer is always this, that each of us would look into the passages that I speak from, and test my words to see that they are true and align properly with God’s Word. And if you find that I have erred in some way, please tell me, let me know. Because we all DO stumble in some ways, as James states. None of us are perfect. Not me, not you. No one but Jesus Christ has led a perfect life on this earth, and no one else ever will. So please don’t look to me as a perfect teacher, for I am not. I am only a humble servant of the Lord.
• Words are one thing that, once you let them go, you can never get back.
• Words can destroy a relationship, they can end a career, and they can ruin a reputation
• Words can build someone up or tear somebody down.
We must somehow get control of this thing called the tongue. James says in verse 8 that ‘no man can tame the tongue.’ Is he right? Is it true that we are stuck with this thing in our mouths to be ‘out of control’ all our lives? James compares the tongue to several different things as illustrations for us to remember. Think about each of these:
1) He compares the tongue to bit in a horse’s mouth and a rudder of a ship. (picture) The bit is just a tiny piece of metal that controls a big animal. A rudder is just a small part of the boat when you look at it, but that’s what determines where that boat will go. Our tongues are just a tiny part of our whole body, but look at all the boasting it does. Look at how much control our words have on our lives. We call tell a pretty tall tale, but is all that we say really true? The direction of our lives can be steered and controlled by the words we say. People will say just about anything to get what they want in life. Whether that’s a certain job, or maybe a certain partner in life, we can woo our way into their favour by the words we say. But f our actions don’t back up our words, that’s another story! Whether we tell the truth, half-truth, mostly truth, or just plain lies, that’s up to us! But the way people perceive us will be greatly influenced by the fact that if they find out that what we’ve said are just lies, they will lose all respect for who we are. At least they should. Unfortunately, the world sometimes glorifies a lie and doesn’t care if that becomes the standard. But we aren’t supposed to BE like the world, are we?
2) He compares it to a fire. (picture) The last couple of years have seen some devastating fires in California, Greece, and we are all very aware of the forest fires in BC every summer, especially the ones that rampaged through the Kelowna area just a few years ago. These fires destroyed homes, killed livestock, and even killed people. Our tongues, our talk, can do the same thing. Especially if they are a hell-fire of lies, gossip and deceipt! We can start a raging inferno of gossip about a person or group of people with just a simple misunderstanding that gets out of control. People start talking about a situation and spread rumours about someone without going to that person for themselves, and before you know it, everyone thinks that person to be something they are not, or to have done something they haven’t or to …whatever! It’s wrong! It’s gossip, it’s sin! What exactly is gossip? Webster defines gossip in two ways both as a noun and as a verb. As a noun, a gossip is a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts. As a verb, gossip is a rumour or report of an intimate nature. The sad reality of the matter is this: a gossip is a person who will talk about others with you and then talks to others about you. Have we ever gossiped about someone else? If we have, we need to go and set things right with them, and to the people we’ve been talking to. Takes some humility, but it’s better to eat some humble pie than to keep gobbling up gossip.
3) Then James uses some of his strongest language yet. He calls the tongue a ‘restless evil, full of deadly poison’ Whoa! Did I read that right? The tongue is a kind of poisonous evil? Well, in control of man or woman, youth or child, yes it can be. We humans have a natural ability to absolutely destroy someone or something with our words. We can take something beautiful and created by God for good and misrepresent it into something that it was never intended for. I hear and have read the words of some very popular musicians, I won’t call them stars because only God can make a star, and their poetry makes me sick! All that some ‘artists’ can talk about is sex outside of marriage, degradation of women, hate for authority, defaming the name of Christ, and promoting use of illicit drugs. Need I go on? That’s poison. Poison to our young people who are so easily influenced by what the world calls popular culture. And it’s evil, I believe, set afire by hell itself. The devil’s main goal is to separate as many people from God and take them to hell with him in hopes of somehow dethroning God Himself. If that’s not an evil plan, I don’t know what is!
What I see in this passage for us tonight are three things we need to realize about the way we use our tongues, the way we talk. James actually doesn’t give us much hope for the tongue here. The thing that jumped at me though was this. No man can tame the tongue, true. BUT GOD CAN!
1) Always talk as if God is listening to every word you say. Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer. What we say and what we think about need to meet God’s standards. They should be acceptable to Him. You may have told a young child when you hear them using foul language, ‘would you talk like that if your mother or father were here?’ Well, would we use some of our language, joking, or thoughts when GOD was around? Guess what, He is! When we open our mouths to speak, we need to be sure we’ve thought a bit about what we are about to say. THINK about what words are about to spill out from your tongue for everyone to hear. Use this little anagram before you blurt something out: T--Is it true?
H--Is it helpful?
I--Is it inspiring?
N--Is it necessary?
K--Is it kind?
2) Speak with other believers in song – WORSHIP TOGETHER! Ephesians 5:19-20 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Singing is such a wonderful way to express our thoughts to God. And it is great when we sing together the songs that give praise to God for all the good things He has done. It encourages one another to know that there are many people who share our love and faith in our Creator. It is a testimony of His goodness. But not all songs have to be about joy and happiness. Sometimes they can be reflective and deep in thought. Sometimes they are cries for help. Just read the psalms, most of which are songs, and read how the writer cries out to the Living God about the enemies that surround him, the pain he is suffering, the questions in his heart, and the needs of his soul. Songs are an excellent way of sharing God’s love and the way He works in our lives. I’d like to share a song with you. It’s called Lost and Found, by Robin Mark. It’s about looking at something as simple as a puddle in the rain, and seeing the beauty that God has even there for us to see.
3) Talk as if your life, or someone else’s, depends on it, because it does! Our testimony is one of the powerful tools we have to reach people with the gospel of Christ. What we say to others about how our lives have been changed by God is our testimony that God’s Word is true and that He is alive and well in the lives of His people. If we don’t tell someone about Jesus, then who will? Is it all up to God, the Pastor, the Zidzone teachers, the worship leader, or someone else? O, it’s up to all of us! Everyone who has accepted Jesus as Saviour and handed over their lives to Him is a witness for Him. I close with this scripture from 1 John 5, verses 10-12
10Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 11And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
