Taming the Tongue

Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to James chapter three? So we talk about taming the tongue. I've often said to my wife and to my children if If you would just cut out my tongue, I'd be a perfect man

And maybe the Lord is doing that by taking away my vocal cords. I don't know I know it's uncomfortable to listen to somebody whose voice is failing, but really it's not as painful as it sounds I feel fine. I just, I guess I screamed too hard at the Army Navy game. I guess I don't know This is a passage of scripture in chapter three that is To say the least a sledgehammer And it can be discouraging for us to read through all of this stuff about the tongue unless We read the whole chapter. That's what we usually don't do When preachers preach on the tongue they usually preach through the first 12 verses, but the Encouraging the good news about the tongue is in verses 13 to 18, which is the antidote to our problem And so we'll look at it all today And I hope you'll be encouraged by the end of the message James is Very concentrated on the tongue in his little epistle. In fact according to James, it is a mark of true religion Looking chapter one in verse 26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue But deceives his heart this person's religion is worthless So according to James the tongue Along with obeying the word of God being a doer of the word and being a person of compassion who visits widows and orphans in their distress and Along with holiness Keeping them oneself Unstained by the world. These are the marks of true religion in fact holiness is often manifested or Not manifested by the way we use our tongues by the way we speak James will tell us that there's a litmus test that we can give ourselves and That is to look at our temperament. That's chapter one. How we perform spiritually when we're under great stress and difficulties and disappointments have come in our way and How we respond to the truth to God's word But thirdly the third litmus test is the test of the tongue If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart This person's religion is worthless For we all stumble in many ways and if anyone does not stumble in what he says he is a perfect man Abel to bridle his whole body The tongue according to James is as it were a thermometer of the soul How we speak will always tell the condition of our hearts now James does not arrive with at these thoughts originally He borrows again from his older brother Jesus Christ Jesus once said either make the tree good and It's fruit good or make the tree bad with its fruit bad For the tree is known by its fruit You brood of vipers How can you speak good when you were evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good things and The evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil? I'll tell you on the day of judgment People will look count for every careless word they speak For by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned Therein lies the source of the problem You know as well as I do loved ones that the problem is not the tongue The problem is the heart From the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart Jesus said and that is James's message That the tongue is really attached to the soul and if the soul is good The tongue will speak well And if it's not Then we will be ashamed of What we say and how we use our tongue There is I think no greater rebuke because there is no more searing and comprehensive Condemnation for the human race than in this third chapter It does here's the comfort in it. It applies to everybody So really the person I'm speaking to this morning is myself Beginning in chapter three verse one about teachers and preachers But as I speak to myself I also speak to you because according to God's word The human problem with controlling the tongue is a problem of the human race The spiritual nail That drives itself right into our hearts is the fact that our tongues Tell everybody the condition of our soul It's not as if we could hide it Unless we never speak The double-mindedness that James talks about in chapter one and again in chapter four manifests itself on what he calls double speech He said with our tongues we will bless God and turn around and curse our neighbor Brothers he says these things ought not to be That double-mindedness needs to double talk and Our proneness as we studied last week to deceive ourselves Can lead us to deceive others with our speech So whatever the condition of my soul is it's going to manifest itself in the way we speak In this chapter there are three paragraphs and in each one of these paragraphs James deals with a different kind of soul a different kind of a spirit In the first paragraph Versus one to five he talks about his sensoria spirit and a critical tongue In the second paragraph he talks about a contentious spirit and an angry mouth and In the third paragraph for our encouragement he talks about a Christ-centered soul and a controlled tongue So let's look at these three things one at a time dealing first of all with a sensoria spirit Not many of you should become teachers my brothers For you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness For we all stumble in many ways and if anyone does not stumble in what he says he is a perfect man able also to bridle his whole body If we put bits into the mouth of a horse so that they obey us we guide their whole bodies as well Look at the ships also though they are so large under driven by strong winds They're guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs So also the tongue is a small member yet at most of great things I'm talking about a sensoria spirit a judgmental spirit James deals with three issues first of all the issue of teaching He begins by warning people not to go into preaching and teaching because if they do he knows this from experience They will incur what he calls a stricter judgment Not many of you should become teachers my brothers for you know that we who teach So he clues himself in that group we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. Well, why? Will because teachers and preachers Use their tongues for living And demonstrate for all of us the immense power of the tongue They have as Isaiah says the beautiful feet and the the glad voice that brings the message of good news and they can bless Many people in what they say when they preach and teach But they also have the power with unguarded hearts and loose speaking to lead many people astray Hence they will be judged with the greater strictness. He says in verse 1. Is it fair? Well, I think so Absolutely They hold a greater place of influence than other people They possess a great level of knowledge and so they're responsible for what they say Preaches more than anybody Should be able to back up every single thing they say after all they're dealing with human souls and with the eternal destiny of people Thirdly, they possess a greater public witness and how they use their speech can bring great reproach upon the church Or great credibility to the gospel and they have a greater accountability Their public speech makes them responsible to the public for what they say This is something that young preachers and I think people in the congregation often miss If I were to write something It would be copyrighted And no one would be able to quote it or claim it unless they got permission from me Not so with a sermon A sermon as soon as it is preached becomes what's called the property of public domain It can be preached by somebody else without ever acknowledging that I came up with the sermon It can be quoted without quoting me And it becomes the property of public criticism Once I say something from this pulpit Even if it doesn't go on the internet even if it's not On our website It becomes public domain people have a right to interact with what I say Other preachers can criticize me by name They can take me to task for what I say you have the right to email me or write to me and say I take exception to this Why because of the accountability I have for public speech now? You don't have the right to do that to me when I'm speaking privately with another person of the congregation Or with my wife and children at my home But because of the public nature of this office What I say is the property lawyers have determined the law is determined a public domain and James says because of that We have a great deal of accountability for what we say sometimes Some of you get irritated when I call out another preacher and what he says by name you say why would you do that? I've never criticized his life or his character. I always criticize his theology Because when he says it it goes out over the waves out in his books out in his sermons It becomes the right of domain The right for me to speak into his life and it was teaching as he has the right to speak in the mind and as you do And so James says in effect If you can't take the heat Then don't get in the kitchen and don't get in the pulpit. It's the same with blogging People say the most irresponsible things on a blog Things that they said face-to-face with somebody they'd be punched out and Then they wonder why people Come back in a vociferous manner. They say you know the PCA is not a safe place. Well of course it is But if you take someone to task in public They have a right to respond in public and so James says from the very start I want you to know he's saying that I as a teacher we who teach he says We are prone to the censure of chapter three more than anybody else Because we are making judgments When we preach we're making decisions about what is right and what is wrong who was correct and who's false What theology is according to the Bible and what is not and we're communicating that to people and We need a high level of accountability and doing that He also deals with the issue of censorship look in verses two through four For we all stumble in many ways We all say he says And if anyone does not stumble it if he doesn't send With what he says Well, then he's got to be a perfect man Abel also to bridle his whole body his whole nature If we put bits into the mouth of a horse so that they obey us we guide their whole bodies as well Look at the ships also Though they are so large and are driven by strong winds They're guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs Notice that James transitions from pastors to us He says not many of you should become teachers For we all stumble in many ways He's really not intending to talk just to preach us in chapter three The preacher becomes the obvious example of the people in the pew He wants to talk about people who set themselves up as teachers John Calvin says I take teachers not to be those who performed a public duty for the church But such as took it upon themselves the right of passing judgment upon other people's Who were not approved to do so I think James is saying look when it comes to censoring what is incorrect and judging what is true or false We don't need everybody in the community of the church to do that We have people that we hire Who study and train for that And the more we set ourselves up as a teacher a preacher a sense or a judge of other people the more we're going to Enter into problems that caused a disruption in the church the tongue. He says is a little thing Like a bit and bridle a little piece of metal or wood Tied to two straps of letter can be put in the mouth of a great steed and a child Can direct that horse wherever she wants it to go Likewise these big massive sailing ships tons and tons of weight Driven by strong winds on the sea could be controlled by a man's hands simply turning a wheel The turns a little slab of wood at the end of a pole Directing this great ship or ever the pilot wants it to go So the tongue he says those small he calls it a small member in this text has great power The power to control the person to use it The power to bully others into compliance who hear The power to steer the church in a good direction or a bad way. We've all seen How a little man with a big mouth can bully people Into all sorts of things the power of his speech can intimidate Kinshane Conthreaten people into doing things they really don't want to do That's really the power of political correctness It's not that you win people through argument You just get enough people to say the same thing and by fear Everybody goes along That is the power of the tongue little And yet great in its effect Proverbs says with his mouth the gallus man would destroy his neighbor But my knowledge the righteous man is delivered That tongue that you think is inconsequential James says is the most powerful part of your body and Because of that it has to be guarded from a great sin pride Look at verse five So also the tongue is a small member yet it boasts of great things it is arrogant and braggadocious and self-promoting Inevitably this is true people who are always judging others People have a sensorious spirit and sensorious speech are people filled up with a sense of self-importance So that everybody has to hear what they say and everybody has to know what they believe and if you don't believe in it like they do or agree with them Then you're going to be judged as wrong bad And that is pride in operation John MacArthur says James gives no specific to the saying that the tongue boasts of great things But he obviously has in mind the natural inclination to boast to be self-centered and Contrary to the claims of many popular psychologists to have a very high image of yourself Again, it is the heart that gets hold of the tongue and steers it in the wrong direction a proud heart Makes for a sensorial spirit for judgmental and costly critical speech That's not the only thing you can also be a contentious spirit and That is what he talks about in verses 5 through 12 How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire and the tongue is a fire a world of unrighteousness The tongue is set among our members Staining the whole body sending on fire the entire course of life and so on fire by hell For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and sea creatures can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind But no human being contained the tongue It is a restless evil Full of deadly poison with it. We bless our Lord and Father and with it We curse people who are made and the likeness of God from the same mouth come blessing and cursing my brothers These things ought not to be so Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree my brothers bear olives or great vine produce things Neither can assault upon yield fresh water James uses five metaphors To talk about the results of a contentious tongue The first one he says is the tongue is like a forest fire Tiny spark Can set thousands of acreage ablaze We see all these forest fires every late autumn out in the west that consume millions of acres Simply because of spark a stroke of lightning A little ember left over from a campfire Sets ablaze a great forest and so it is and when he says the entire course of life in Greek it really reads the circle of life A man's life from the beginning to the end the wheel of life is set ablaze by a tiny spark of contentious unkind speech We've all seen people whose whole lives have been changed They've been wounded and warped by growing up in a family that was mean in its speech And we've seen that person with a word here and there an ill-timed or perhaps strategically time sentence Set ablaze an entire group of people causing a firestorm of Contention is striped simply by the way they use their words The second metaphor Is that a contentious tongue is like an untamable beast He says all kinds of mammals and birds and reptiles and seek creatures have entamed by men, but no man contained the tongue It is eventually in the bottom line the one thing in our life that cannot be domesticated It is untamable controlled perhaps but never tamed It's like having a wild beast like a lion or a tiger as a pet And you think the thing is under control until one day it turns around and moles somebody to death simply because it's DNA is still wild That's what the tongue is like Thirdly a contentious tongue is like a deadly poison Kind of carryover from the metaphor of the wild beast, but here He speaks obviously of a snake Something that's venom is able to be injected into the life stream of another organism and bring its life to an end Gossip is like this a little bit injected by the fangs of a contentious spirit Can kill the sweet fellowship of a church. It is interesting That when Jesus Christ wants to compare the devil to an animal he picks a serpent And says that he is the accuser of the brethren The venom of saint and speech regentuses three Has infected the whole human race And brought forth the death that a company sin Fortly he says the contentious tongue is like a polluted spring Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water You know what happens when a little bit of salt is put in fresh water becomes brackish we say Unable to be drunk And unable to sustain life The salty words of others can make brackish the springs Of sweet fellowship that should flow through the church and finally he says 50 The contentious tongue is like a tree producing the wrong kinds of fruit You go he says to look for a fig tree to find figs What if you found olives on it? something would be wrong In fact it'd be impossible to find olives on a fig tree You go to a Christian to find the fruit of the spirit Love and joy peace and patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control But oftentimes you find not the fruit of the spirit But of the flesh Now the works of the flesh are evident Sexual immorality impurity sensuality idolatry Sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, Decentions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these We go to look for the kind of fruit we would expect in a Christian life and find The kind of fruit that we expect in a non-Christian life And the tongue will be the evidence of one or the other What's the root problem of all this? Where does all this contention come from? I want you to look again at verses 9 and 10, which I think are the key to the whole passage Why do you and I? Why do I and why do you always have a struggle with controlling our tongue? Because we are double-minded people And therefore double-tongued verse 9 and 10 With it that is with the tongue We bless our Lord and Father And with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God From the same mouth Comes blessing and cursing my brothers These things ought not to be so Here's the double-minded man unstable in all his ways he says in chapter 1 verse 8 Who is double-tongued? He speaks with a fork tongue as the American idiom says He speaks like a serpent There is something wrong with his theology He's willing to accept God as his Father and bless God who is his Father But unwilling to bless the children of God who are his brothers and sisters in the church That is why James calls them my brothers my brothers My brothers and sisters these things ought not to be so If God is my Father and if God is your Father Then the inevitable cannot be escaped We are brothers and sisters in Christ What what parent here Would be content to have the children of his family Speak to him and his wife With great affection and respect and blessing And treat their siblings in the most foul way With angry and contentious speech I'll bet you when I grew up I got more spanked while I did get more spankings than all my siblings combined That's a fact I said a state record in Ohio that hasn't broken yet I actually only got one spanking That's the truth Started when I was five and it ended when I was 19 One continuous banking and what I got spanked for the most was what I said To my brothers and sisters And that's the way it should be And James says because we are double-minded we want to see God as our Father but not the Church as our brothers and sisters That becomes the problem that allows us to speak with a double tongue And a double heart Now at this point This is looking pretty gruesome But there is good news James does say that the tongue Could be changed Because the soul can be redeemed And he says that in chapter 13 through 18 where he talks about resting in a Christ-centered spirit He never mentions Jesus Christ But he mentions the wisdom from above who earlier In his epistle he made clear was Jesus Christ So he's referring to Jesus Christ here Who is wise and understanding among you By his good conduct let him show his works and the weakness of wisdom But if you have bitter jealousy and self-acambition in your hearts Do you not boast and be false to the truth This is not the wisdom that came down from above But is earthly and spiritual demonic For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist There will be disorder in every vile practice But the wisdom from above is first pure Then peaceable gentle open to reason full of mercy and good fruits impartial and sincere And the harvest of righteousness is so in peace by those who make peace James says That the gospel can do three things to us Jesus Christ can come and stabilize our souls with grace He can center our life upon God and the things of God And he can control how we treat others with our tongues by his love That's what he's saying here If my life is rooted in Christ Then all those things that tempt me to use my tongue for evil Are of no count and have no ultimate power over me, but Christ Has the power over me Notice that James returns to his theme of wisdom here The knowledge that God gives us to lead a holy and a happy life Who is wise and understanding among you By his good conduct let him show his works in the weakness of wisdom It's two kinds of wisdom There's a worldly wisdom and there's a gospel wisdom The worldly wisdom he describes this way But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition In your hearts Do not boast and be false to the truth People who are caught up with bitter jealousy With worldly ambitions self-centered ambitions With boasting And with manipulating other people Going to find that they're way of looking at life. That's what wisdom is. It's a way of looking at life It's a paradigm for interpreting reality and how to react to it They're going to find that their wisdom is really look when he like how he describes it It's earthly, unspiritual, and demonic And where this selfish ambition and jealousy exist There will be disorder and every kind of vile practice all kinds of dissension All kinds of filthy speech all kinds of angry statements all kinds of unjustified and sensorial calculated judgments on people but That worldly wisdom Can be replaced by the wisdom that comes from God through Jesus Christ Every good gift and every perfect thing is from above Coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow James is alluding to that God when he says this wisdom Comes to us from above it comes from God and who comes from God The word the wisdom of God made flesh who was Jesus Christ And when he comes the wisdom that fills our hearts And wraps itself around our tongues is different Look at verse 17 look at these eight wonderful descriptions of the wisdom that Jesus Christ brings us But the wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle Open to reason it's it's reasonable full of mercy and good fruits impartial and sincere And when it's embraced When the soul sucks up that wisdom it begins to control the tongue For the tongue is connected to the heart the heart to the soul The mouth speaks from that which fills the heart Then a harvest of righteousness is shown in peace By those who make peace here's James's main point It's a whole point of the chapter Because sometimes we load so much emphasis on how bad the tongue is and how Nobody can control it and how we ought to convict ever but we never go to the cure I've heard dozens of sermons about the tongue that always had the first 12 verses And left off this wonderful exhortation That the great God from above Caned and will slowly but surely through the presence of Christ in our life Changed the way I think about myself my life other people this world You'll change my spirit He'll change the way I react to things He'll change my heart And he will change how I treat people and speak to other people When I'm reacting from my heart and thinking with my spirit God can do that It won't happen quickly James loads that when he says if anyone Never sends with his mouth he is what? Perfect Well, when will you and I be perfect when we get to heaven When we die in this world a justified and A man in the process of being sanctified we wake up in an instant in the next world sinlessly perfect Don't ever think that you're going to be perfect in the way you speak But we should see Definite progress over the weeks and months and years of our life in this process of sanctification this progressive work of the Holy Spirit To make us more like Christ Because Christ has come in and taken control of our spirits

How practically speaking Does this really work Well, let me give you several things to think about first of all here's number one If my life is rooted in Jesus Christ And focus primarily on his rewards in heaven My tongue will be tethered to that which is above Not on the stuff that is here below It's all a matter of what you focus your life on Paul would put it this way If then you have been raised up with Christ seek the things that are above Christ to see at the right hand of God Set your minds on the things that are above and not on the things that are on the earth For you have died in your life is hidden with Christ and God therefore when Christ who is your life is revealed You will also appear with him in glory If you want to make sure That you're making progress in the way you think and feel and speak then focus on the things above But if you're focused only on the things here making money Getting good grades Getting into the right kind of school winning championships buying a big house being pretty Being macho all these things of the world your heart will be focused on the things of the earth And your speech will be earthly natural and demonic Number two If the love of Jesus Christ fills my soul Then what other people think means very little to me And I will not be tempted to use my tongue To defend myself Listen to Paul With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you Or by any human court in fact I do not even judge myself For I am not aware of anything against myself but I am not thereby acquitted It is the Lord who judges me Therefore do not pronounce judgment upon others before the time Before the Lord comes Who will bring to light the things now hidden in the darkness and will disclose the motives of every human heart Then each person will receive his commendation from God If you belong to Jesus Christ What does it matter what other people think about you The only person's opinion about you that matters in eternity is God's And if you've been accepted by God and other people say things about you that are critical judgmental Unkind untrue You don't need to defend yourself Because you have someone else to defend you that's the third thing I want to point out Is when I am tempted to use my words as weapons I should stop remember that Jesus Christ protects defense and advocates for me even When I'm wrong

First John chapter 2 My little children I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin But if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous He is the propitiation for our sins and not for our only But also for the sins of the whole world Every time someone says something about you that's untrue Jesus Christ stands before the father and says That's not right Father, that's not accurate Here's the truth about Michael Ross Here's the truth about David Care Here's the truth about Mark Polarty Here's the truth about these people They belong to me They're justified They've got these problems but I'm working on them. I promise you by the time they get faced faced with you They'll be perfect Nothing to worry about I'm handling my people for you God says son good enough with me He does not listen God does not listen to the accuser of the brethren Who is a liar from the beginning he listens to our defending attorney Jesus Christ the righteous one who paid for our sins

Here's the fourth thing When I'm feeling either insecure or self-righteous and thus tempted to use my tongue in a judgmental manner I will remind myself that I have been justified in Christ and adopted by God And there's no need for me to judge other people So that I appear better than they are Paul says let all bitterness and wrath and anger Claim and slandery put away from you Along with all malice Be kind to one another Tenderhearted forgiving one another Because God in Christ has forgiven you Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth But only such a word is as good for edification that it may give grace to those who hear Love one another Just as God loves you finally Once Jesus Christ controls our life The Holy Spirit will reverse all of the evil things About our tongue and use them for good That raging fire Will become an ember For the incense of the praise of God Who him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God That is the fruit of the lips that acknowledges his name That untameable beast becomes a lamb who rests in grace Behold I am sending you into the world as lambs among the wolves That deadly poison will become a balm of healing for other souls in pain and in distress There is one whose rash words are like a sword But the tongue of the wise brings healing That polluted stream Becomes a fountain of spiritual life for you and for other people Whoever believes in me as the scripture says Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water And the wrong kind of fruit Becomes the fruit of the spirit Which no one can find fault with But the fruit of the spirit is love joy Peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control Against such things there is no law And those who belong to Jesus Christ Have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires Can this really happen? Yes, it will happen To those who are redeemed over the span of a lifetime That most deadly force in the world A sinful tongue attached to a Christless soul Will be transformed by the Holy Spirit who moves in and takes control of the spirit, the heart, and the mouth

Can we be sure of that? Yes It's the promise of God I am confident of this very thing That he who began a good work in you Will bring it to completion Until the day of Christ Jesus I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me

No man can tame the tongue James said that, therefore it's true But Jesus Christ says no mere man He is after all the word of God in a human body God always uses his speech To bring forth life To heal To clarify things To strengthen, to encourage To point us in the way of truth To give us Himself And that is what Jesus Christ will bring to you and me It will be a long protracted struggle Because this little member Is attached to a double mind But as that mind becomes more singularly focused on Christ So that speech will end up being a blessing Let me give you five things I'll close with this, it'll take me one minute Let me give you five things you can do With the grace of Jesus Christ To begin to change your speech Because you have to change your heart first Number one Read a Psalm every day It makes sense to me That if the word of God goes into the heart On a consistent basis It will be the thoughts of God that will come out through the mouth eventually You intake God's word Especially words of such beauty and grace as the Psalms Every day And they'll change the way you think and feel and the way you speak Number two And this is related to the first one

Make yourself what I call a promise can My daughter Abigail made one of these for me years ago It's on my desk Little coffee cans she wrapped with something She took the little pieces of paper and wrote out Probably 50 or 60 spiritual promises from the Bible Versus and I take one a day and read it I just pull out the promise of the day and I read it Leave it by my telephone in the office And I meditate on that promise all through the day That's another way to take the word of God Into your mind be transformed by it number three Make a commitment for a seven-blessing day Make up your mind to bless seven people every day by something you say Couldn't be as simple as the sweetheart that that sweater just really looks great on you. That's a blessing Or an email sent to somebody that's an encouragement Or word of support for somebody going through a hard thing perhaps it's just To thank and you pass a police officer say you just stop her and say you know I want to thank you for what you do for me and my family in our city every day Do that to seven people Seven times a day David said seven times a day. I bless the Lord. How about seven times a day you bless somebody else With the organ of the mouth made for blessing and not for cursing James says number four Ask forgiveness for the sins of the tongue The tongue can hurt people But much of the hurt can be reversed if you simply go as quickly as you can and say you know I shouldn't have said that to you. I asked you forgiveness. I was wrong And finally number five I'm not being comical here speak less Don't say much Think more Pray more If you feel like telling somebody off Tell God Tell God what you think about that person There was a guy on the TV the other night and he was talking about this NFL linebacker And he said to the referee said uh ref Can I be penalized for what I think The ref said of course not he said well then I think you're the loudest referee in the NFL

Okay, that's not what I mean by thinking more Keep your thoughts to yourself. The proverb says the man a few words Gets in less problems than the person who's got to let everybody know what they're thinking He's a practical things you can do with the power of grace and the presence of Jesus Christ We should see our speech improve over time Because you know what it's important for you and me to get control of our mouth Because the whole world is dependent upon what we say to them Faith come with by hearing And hearing by the word of God If we bless people with how we speak We should expect to see many people come to Christ If we don't I'm afraid we'll see the opposite You can pray for me and my mouth I am praying for you and yours Let's go to the Lord now and use our speech For the best thing we can do which is to pray Father we want to thank you that you've made us like you And what makes us different from the creatures below us is our ability to speak Our power to communicate In abstract words and in concrete sentences Things that are visible and invisible To talk about the things of heaven and earth And with our tongues to spread these abroad We thank you for this power We want to confess to you that we often use it irresponsibly Even sinfully Even unkindly And we would ask you to continue your deep work in us To perfect our spirits and our hearts To which our tongue is connected So that we become people who bless others People of the truth People of prayer and encouragement People who display in how we speak the fruit of the spirit And are giving words for edification According to the need of the moment Keep on wholesome speech Away from us by making wholesome our hearts and minds By immersing them in your word By meditating upon your promises By praying and singing every morning the Psalms these lovely words Given to bless you and us through the human spirit And do a deep and abiding work by the Holy Spirit in our hearts Father, there are many of us here today Whose mouths would give consistent evidence that we do not have the Holy Spirit living in us We are not converted We're not saved This day I pray with our mouths we would pray to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior Turning away from our self-centeredness and our sins And turning to Jesus Christ in faith and dependence Resting in him alone for salvation as he's offered to us in this Bible this good news this gospel And as you convert us this day as you bring us into new life Would you give us the spirit to give us new tongues So that we might be the beautiful feet who bring glad tidings of good things Who say to Israel and to the world Behold your God Jesus Christ and whose name we do pray amen