Good morning, Calvary Chapel. Are you guys ready for a fire
and drill now? Everybody got that information
down. Hey, man, thank you, Sister
Karen and all those who put that together.
Thank you for that. Sister Kerry, thank you so much
for those very exuberant, exciting announcements.
A lot's going on Calvary Chapel and we thank God that he's
moving in this house. Going to ask that you would take
your Bibles out. And if you would please turn to
the second, I'm sorry, 3rd chapter of James this morning.
We're going to cover verses one through 12.
And while we're doing that, I would like to welcome everyone
that's here this morning, all of you who are have come back to
worship with us. If you were here recently for
the first time, we thank you for coming back and worshiping with
us. And, and of course, all of you
who are here for the very first time, it's always a blessing to
have you guys come in and just see what we're all about here at
Calvary Chapel. We pray that your worship
experience would be good and we pray that you feel God's love
while you're here and that you feel welcome.
And all those who are listening by way of the radio or listening
by way of Grace FM online, those who are behind prison doors, we
want to thank you for always being faithful and coming with
us. Just want to say this morning,
our brothers, Will and Hillary Thomas have been hit with a loss
and they are dealing with the loss of Hillary's mother.
They just recently dealt with the loss of her, of her father,
and now they're dealing with the loss of her, of her mother.
So we ask that you would keep Will and Hillary Thomas in your
prayers, please. And hopefully maybe some point
today. Pastor Clark and Cindy and I
would like to try to get down there.
My wife is under the weather so she won't be able to to come
with us, but we thank God for that, that we'll be able to do
get down and just have her spiritual family and many that
will be going down to have her spiritual family support them in
this time. I would like to thank also
Sister Kerry for letting me know that today was Pastor's
appreciation that I had no idea every now and then someone will
come and tell me, hey, what today is doughnut day, your
doughnut appreciation day or Starbuck coffee appreciation
day. And I have no idea when these
things happen. They just kind of come up, you
know, today's hamburger day or whatever it is.
You know, I like those kind of holidays though.
But anyway, I want to thank you guys and, and what a just an
awesome fellowship this is and just how much love is spreading
around around this house. We always feel your support and
we want to thank all of you on behalf of Clark and myself and
our wives. We want to thank all of you for
your service and your faithfulness to do what God has
called you to do. We wouldn't be able to do what
we do if it wasn't for you doing what you do.
And I would like to spend out a send out a special thank you to
our wives because without having the women that God has caught
into our lives as helpmets, we will not be able to do this.
So we thank God for Terry and, and, and for Cindy in many ways
of supporting us to do what it is that God has called us to do,
which is really important. Just like those of you who are
in ministry, your spouses are also associated with that
ministry as well because they help you to do what it is that
God has called you to do. So thank all of you.
OK, having said all that, let's turn to the Word of God.
Amen. OK, as I said, we are going to
be in the 3rd chapter of James and we're going to be looking at
verses one through 12. Let's pray and let's get into
the Word. Father, once again we come and
we assemble together as per Your command, that we should not
forsake the assembling of ourselves together as some have.
We ask so God, that as we assemble that you be here with
us, even as we know that Your promises are yay and Amen.
You promised that if two or three of us, whenever we gather
in Your name, that You are here in the midst of us.
And I'm so glad you didn't say I will be there.
You said I am in the midst of you.
So, Father, we thank you for your presence with us this
morning. And the topic that we have this
morning, Lord, as you know, is a very tough topic.
It's a topic of dealing with the tongue.
But Father, we ask for the grace, we ask for the mercy, we
ask for the wisdom, the understanding to rightly divide
this word. Father, we need your Holy Spirit
to reveal this truth to us. We need your Holy Spirit to help
us Lord, to leave here and to be able to be doers of this word
that we hear this morning. We ask you for these things in
the name of our Savior and our Lord.
In Jesus name we pray, Amen. I was told a story recently that
said that there was a pastor who have been doing a series of
things and. He came to the end of his sermon
one Sunday morning and he looked out at the congregation.
He said, come back next week because next week we're going to
talk about the most troubling or troublesome and the most
unsettled, the most evil, the most divisive member of our
church. So I don't need to tell you that
that next Sunday it was packed. People will wonder if they were
going to, if they were going to be a slideshow on this person.
You know me. Who?
Who is it? And then, of course, he went on
to talk about the untamable tongue, which is the most unruly
member of our church. Throughout this section, James
has been basically letting us know in very practical ways and
we keep saying that because it's important.
It's very important for me because he's very, he's very
black and white about the things that he's talking about and very
direct. As we said last week and, and,
and last week, he talked about works and talked about the, the
relationship between saving faith and our good works.
Before that he talked about having, as we said, you know, no
partiality in our service to the Lord in this week and all those
things that he talked about the last few weeks.
It was about the maturity, our spiritual maturity and how you
can tell that one is spiritually mature.
And as he talked about last week, good works is the evidence
of one that is not only spiritually mature, but is the
evidence of our saving faith. So is the word, or so are the
words that we speak. So is our speech.
How important it is to have speech that that represents and
glorifies God. You see, our deeds in our words
should reflect our faith in God. Our speech should be evidence of
our profession of faith. So what I'm going to do, I'm
going to read this all the way through 1st and then I'm going
to go back and we're going to deal with it.
Amen. So he says this in verse 1 of
chapter 3. He says, my brother, let not
many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a
stricter judgment, for we all stumble in many ways.
If anyone does not stumble in Word, he's a perfect man, able
also to bridle the whole body. Indeed.
And we put bits in horses mouths that they may obey us, and we
turn their whole body. Look also at ships.
Although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they
are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot
desires. Even so, the tongue is a little
member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little
fire Kindles, and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.
The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the
whole body and sets on fire the course of nature, and it is set
on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and
bird, of reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been
tamed by mankind. But no one can tame the tongue.
It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse
men, And we have been who have been made in the similitude of
God. Out of the same mouth proceed
blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought
not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh
water and bitter from the same opening?
Can a fig tree my brother and bear olives or a Grapevine bear
figs? Thus, no spring yields both salt
water and fresh. I don't have to tell you that
throughout our lives, many times we have experienced the
devastation of the power of the tongue.
We have experienced the the problems that someone has when
they just use their tongue in ways that could be detrimental
or ways that can be harmful. We've done it, I've done it.
I've certainly used my tongue in ways that I should not have.
And I'm sure people have used their tongues against me in ways
that they should not have. The tongue is an untamable
member. And when we look at this
particular passage, we see that James in talking about the
tongue, he starts first of all with the, you know, with, with,
with teachers who uses their tongue to communicate God's
word. So he says, he says, my brother,
let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall
receive a stricter judgment. James said, For we all stumble
in many things. If if anyone does not stumble in
Word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.
But now when we look at that, he is saying to those, and he must
have been in a place where there were many men who were trying to
jockey for position to be teachers who were just motivated
to go and teach. And James is saying to them, oh,
let me slow up a little bit. First of all, you need to
understand that teachers will have a stricter judgment.
So before you decide that you want to go and teach the Word of
God, you need to have something settled within yourself.
First of all, are you called? As I told you before, my
grandmother said that you can know a good preacher because
there's some who were sent and there were some who just went
and, and, and, and so we understand here what James is
saying, that first of all, you need to be called.
Were you called? Were you truly called?
Do you have, do you truly have a heart to teach God's word?
Or are you just interested in hearing your own voice?
Or are you just interested in being in a position of
authority, or you just interested in being able to have
some semblance of control over what people are hearing and what
people do? But you have to have a heart for
God and for His word. Are you able to just stand flat
footed and preach the truth regardless of the culture,
regardless of what the, the, the saying is these days or what
people accept these days, regardless of somebody talking
about relative truth, Are you able to give the absolute truth
and stand by it and not be swayed by what people think
James is saying you need to slow down a little bit before you be
become a preacher because you're going to be judged according to
those things. You will have the stricter
judgment. Teachers are held to a higher
standard. Not only are they held to what
they teach, we have to rightly divide what we teach.
We have to make sure that there's time that we study and
all of those things, but not only that, but to live what we
teach, which is just as important.
James is saying, are you willing to spend the time that's needed
to rightly divide what you're teaching?
Because there's some teachers enjoying that particular time.
They were dealing with preachers who were teaching heresy that
were leading the people away from Jesus.
They were teaching things that were abominable.
And James is saying that you better make sure that you
understand because you're going to be held to a stricter
judgment. And notice he said we will be
held to a stricter judgment. He included himself in that.
Then we go down here to verse 2. He said, for we all stumble in
many things. If anyone does not stumble in
Word, he is a perfect man able also to bridle or to control the
whole body. James says here that we all
stumble and I like the fact that he mentioned we in this, he
didn't just say you all stumble. He said we all stumble.
Yes, James. And we talked about who James
was right? He said, you know, James was
actually had the, the, the, the nickname of being James, the
just He also had a nickname of being old camel knees.
We talked about how he he prayed so much and so often that he had
calluses on his knees. James was known to be a
righteous man. James was the half brother of
Jesus. Yet he says we all stumble in
many things because we do. None of us are perfect and James
realized that that included him as well.
But we should also understand that when he that when he says
that we're not saying he's not talking that, that, that when
you you know, and he said, you know, when he says that we
stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in
Word that he is a perfect man, he's not saying that you're
going to be perfect. He's talking about a mature
Christian. He's talking about being mature,
learning and, and, and becoming more and more like Christ.
But if you are able to keep your tongue, if you are able to not
stumble in Word, he says you're a mature man and you're also
able to control your whole body. Doesn't mean that when we do
stumble that we're not saved. It doesn't mean that we all do
have times when we come short of God's glory.
But when we stumble, it reminds us that we all need God's grace.
We all need his mercy. We all need him because we can't
do it in and of ourselves. We all need the Holy Spirit to
help us in this because we're not perfect.
Now, if, if we were perfect, you know, he talked about being
perfect. If he was, if we were perfect,
then we would be that person who would never ever have to take
anything back that he says. He would never have to take
anything back. You know when he, when he says,
you know, he, he don't say words that are hurtful or unkind or
untrue. He doesn't say words that are
selfish, proud and rude or, or or have these momentary
outbursts of anger. He doesn't do that.
Just if he was a perfect person. Well, that's not me because I
have had all of those things. I have said things that were
hurtful. I have said things that were
unkind, even untrue. I've said things that were
selfish. I've been proud.
I have said things that were rude and I have had outbursts of
anger. So we all deal with these
things. We're not perfect and we all
experience these kind of things, but if this becomes your
lifestyle, if this this becomes your, if this categorizes you as
the person, the kind of person you are, if this is your norm
and not just something that you deal with every now and then,
then we have to consider whether or not we have had true
conversion, that we have had that new heart.
Did we have that change that takes place, that transformation
that takes place whenever Jesus comes to live in your heart?
But the fact is we're not perfect because if we were, we
could control everything about us.
So in verse three he says when we put bits and horses mouths
that they may obey us. I enjoy that because I love
horses. Anybody else out here like
horses? Ah, there you go.
OK, yeah, I love horses. I mean, I in fact, I think I
told you guys before my first date with my wife, I took a
horseback ride. I think that you can tell a lot
about a person when you put them on a horse, but I do, I enjoy
horseback riding. And it's not only you know,
horseback riding is not only therapeutic.
But it's also peaceful to me, you know, be, I mean, you're,
you're out there in the woods. And I always did like Westerns
when I was young, you know, couldn't wait to have a port.
I lived in a project. I used to always tell my mom,
could you, you know, can we get a horse for Christmas?
You know, what in the world was I going to keep a horse in the
projects? But I just wanted a horse, you
know, So on Christmas morning sometime, I would go out back
and look and see if there was a horse tied up out there
somewhere. And of course, it never was.
That was never going to happen. And then I got older and I
started to, I had a relation, you know, a relationship, a
friendship with this, with this guy who had a stable with new
Alexandra was the first time I found out about where New
Alexandra was. And man, he had like about 1213
horses. And, and I would spend a lot of
my days out there and a lot of my weekends, you know, helping
them take, you know, first when I was just out there just riding
and then I started taking rides out for him and just really
getting. Kind of getting into that life,
me and my family, my kids and we kind of got into it and we
started learning a lot about horses.
And I'm so glad that my mother never bought me one because.
Man, it's a ton of work. It's a ton of work.
But I think it's interesting here that James uses that
example when he talks about, because he's now moving into
talking about how the tongue can be used for control.
And, and, and he says that indeed, we put bits in horses
mouths that they may obey us and we turn their whole body.
So if you think about a 14 or 1800 LB animal being under you,
that you're, that you're, you're sitting on top of this animal.
And the only thing that controls this animal is about a, a, a A5
and 1/2 inch bit that's in his mouth that you turn to the left,
to the right, or that you pull down and stop him or whatever
you may do or release. So whatever you do, it's a 5 1/2
inch bit that small controls the direction and controls this
massive animal that is so strong there's no way we could ever be
able to control him without it. You control the mouth.
In other words, what James is saying, if you can control the
mouth, you can control the beast.
If you can control the mouth, you can control the beast.
So James is saying we put these little small bits in the horse's
mouth if we and they control him.
And he also used another example, he said, And, and also
the example of ships, he says although they are large and are
driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder
wherever the pilot goes. So he's basically saying that
you have this, this, this ship who's large, I mean very large.
And it's, and it's very, another very heavy instrument.
And with a small rudder, you can turn these things.
You can direct them, you can guide them, you can steer them.
I learned a little bit about ships.
I, I, I learned that even today they still use rudders on most
size, most large size ships. Now modern technology has
advanced. So they now use something called
the azimuth Azi myth. I don't even know if I'm am I
pronouncing it? Where's where's my brother?
Am I pronouncing it azimuth. OK.
And as in the thruster or pods, a single which is a single
propeller unit. So it's it's like the rudder and
everything together. But typically like your large
ships that has a propeller and it has a separate part that's a
rudder, which actually controls the direction of the ship.
So you got these large warships and these large cargo ships and
they're being guided by a small rudder.
It's amazing. But there's one other thing I
wanted to tell you I want to share with you about the horse.
Even with the bit when you, the more you develop, the more you
develop the relationship with the horse.
The more fellowship you have with this horse, the less
resistance you will. Have in your direction of and
when you're trying to guide them, the less resistance.
And it's just like us, the more we have fellowship with the
Lord, the more we have fellowship with the Holy Spirit,
the less resistance that we give him when He's guiding us.
So he talks about these small things that can be used to turn
and guide and control these large animals and or this large
animal and this large ship. So then in verse 5, he says, so
even, you know, Even so the tongue is a little member and it
boasts great things. And this and this boast here
doesn't mean just not talking about bragging about great
things. What he's saying is that this
small thing, this small a member in our bodies, the tongue, it
says that it is capable of a lot of influence and power and can
do massive things. It can accomplish massive
things. You see people who can speak and
can move crowds. They can move people to tears.
It moves. It can move people to anger.
It can move people to action. It can move people to
compassion, the tongue. And this is one of the things
that we that you know, that we talk about, you know, when we
talk about words or speech, you know, it's not just a matter of
just words spoken, but even words written, words sung.
When you think about some of the rap music, I used to work with
gang bangers and I used to hear their testimonies and they would
tell me before I would go and do a hit, I would go and drink some
alcohol. I would listen to my favorite
rap artist and that would pump me up enough to go out and do a
hit. We're talking about 1415 year
old kids moved to violence by words.
What does our words move people to we should be careful about?
What it is that we say out of our mouths because it can have.
Power, it can have influence, it can move people to either
compassion or destruction. So then he goes here to verse
verse 6. I'm sorry, let's go to the
bottom of verse 5. He says, see how great a force a
little fire Kindles, and the tongue is a fire, a world of
iniquity. So when you think about a lot of
another, in other words, what he's saying here is that the
tongue, even though it's still small, it can, it can, it can
spark. It can spark a small Just a
small spark from your tongue could cause great disaster,
great destruction, just like a fire.
You know, a match in someone's camp in the forest.
A small match that starts just a little small campfire.
That if out of control, can bring devastation to many, many
miles of forest and homes and lives destroyed in their wake
because of a small spark from a match.
And he's saying, James is saying to us, our tongues can be like
that. And we can start with one person
to say something negative about another person and it can
divide. Eventually it could divide the
whole church. It could bring the church down.
When I was younger I had a friend who one night his, you
know her brother came home from being out late and he decided
that he wanted to boil some hot dogs and go to sleep because
before he was hungry, he was hungry.
So he wanted to just boil some hot dogs and and eat before he
went to bed. Well, while he was waiting for
the hot dogs to to boil, he fell asleep and push the pan begin to
burn. And you know, there, there was a
small fire. And because he was sleep, he
didn't know it. No one else recognized it.
I think he was home by himself. Next thing you know there was,
I'm sorry, he was not home by himself.
There were other people home, but they were all asleep.
Next thing you know, the whole kitchen was on fire.
And then eventually that fire spread.
By the time he woke up, that fire spread and had destroyed
that whole house. So for months a whole family was
homeless, separated and homeless from the spark of 1 pot burning
on the stove. And James is saying, you know
what? Our mouths with just one
negative. Evil word that we speak to
someone about somebody else can cause a major, major fire that
can destroy a church, destroy families.
How many times have we seen families separated, relationship
severed because of something someone said?
Maybe it was said with the purpose of hurting, maybe it was
said out of it was taken out of context.
But something that was spoken and it breaks a relationship
with family where people don't speak for years.
Sometimes they never speak again.
Marriages have been broken because of an outburst, and
someone said something that was so damaging that the other
person just could not forgive it.
Marriages end. So he talks about just how this
tongue can be a world of iniquity.
And then he says the tongue is so set among our members that it
defiles the whole body, and it sets on fire the course of
nature. It defiles the whole body.
A tongue. The words that we speak not only
define, not only our words themselves are defiled, but it
can defile the whole body. We used to hear this saying, and
I'm sure you heard it when you were younger, which says sticks
and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Remember, that was actually like just, you know, quoted like back
in the the 1800s. And the purpose for quoting, I
mean, it had a good intention. I mean, the reason why someone
made this up is because they were trying to help kids.
They were trying to support kids who were being verbally bullied.
So someone said, hey, listen, you know, don't worry about it.
Sticks and stones may hurt, you know, may break your bones, but
words will never hurt you. But that is not true.
That is not true. Words hurt.
I I found a quote and I don't even know who the author of this
is it. It was anonymous, but it says
this. It says the tongue has no bones,
but it's strong enough to break a heart.
So be careful with your words because it can break a heart.
It can be destructive. And the other thing about words,
you know, sometimes, you know, we say something and we want to
turn around and take it back. You know, I'm so sorry I said
that. I didn't mean to say that.
But once it's out us out. Once it's out of South, words
like feathers. They're like feathers you.
Open up a pillowcase and and you got wind blowing and, and and
you release these feathers. You'll never get all those
feathers back. And our words are like that.
We can say things that we can just never take back.
We can never get it back. I found another saying that says
don't mix bad words with your bad mood.
You have many opportunities to change your mood, but you'll
never, ever get the opportunity to change the words that you
spoke. Never Proverbs 1821 says death
and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love it
will eat its fruit. And what that means is that when
you have spoken words to a person, whatever you speak to
them, that's what you're going to reap from them.
The way that you speak to them is the is what you're going to
reap for them. If you speak kindness in life to
them, you're going to get kindness in life back.
But if you speak evil to them, eventually you will turn this
person who may have been sweet at one time, but now you've made
them defensive and and now they've become more harsh
because of our tongues. But the good thing about our
tongues is that we can confess our weaknesses concerning our
speech, and we can ask for forgiveness from the Lord.
And the Lord over time works on hearts.
So yeah, I may have hurt you. I may have said something to you
that you may find hard to get over.
But the Lord, if he, when he doesn't work in me, he can do a
work in you too, and begin to soften your heart, just like He
softens my heart. And then it says here, the
tongue is so set among our members that defiles the whole
body and sets on fire the core and set on fire the course of
nature, or the the will of nature sets on fire the will of
nature. Our path is set by our tongues,
our, our, our, our, our, our will of our, the will of our
life is directed by our tongues. And the one thing we have to
understand is that without God doing a work in our hearts, we
can leave one place. That has become a problem
because of words that we spoke, because of things that we may
have said. But if, unless God doesn't work
in our hearts, we can go somewhere else.
We can change jobs, we can change locations.
We can do all kinds of things. But unless God does a work in
our hearts, we just take that same tongue with us and it
becomes a problem someplace else.
Our ungodly speech comes from an ungodly source.
Our uncontrolled tongue defiles or corrupts every part of us.
Matthew 1511 says not what goes in to the mouth defiles a man,
but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.
So he says it defiles the whole body and sets on on fire the
course of nature or the will of life, and it is set on fire by
hell. So what he's saying here is that
all of this, this, this evil speaking, it comes from
someplace and we know that it doesn't come from the Lord, it
comes from hell. It comes from the evil one.
It's being fueled by the evil 1 So it's almost like we, we, we,
we know if we're constantly spewing out evil things and
we're, and if we're we're listening to somebody that's
constantly spewing out evil things, we have to understand
that's not coming from the Lord. We got to know the source.
We got to understand the source. It's not coming from the Lord.
It's coming from an evil place. And then in verse 7, verse 70
says every kind of beast and bird of reptile creatures and of
the sea is tamed by the tongue. I mean, it's tamed and has been
tamed by mankind, but no one can tame the tongue.
It's an unruly evil full of deadly poison.
So this tongue, you know, he's now talking about Genesis, how
he puts, he puts us, he put man over and made him dominion over
all the, the beast of the field. And also talks about that in
Psalm 8 as well. You know, when he says that he's
put all things under his feet, meaning under the feet of man.
And, and, and we have the dominance over the beast of the
other fields and the birds of the air and the, and the fish
that are in the sea. We have dominance over these
things. And, and it's amazing how we can
see throughout life that man has been able to tame almost
everything. I mean the most ferocious, the
most, the largest and the most dangerous animals.
We can go to different zoos, I mean not zoos, but the circuses
and to different shows. And we can see these man eating
beasts, you know, under the control of another man, of a
man. And they can control these
things. They can train these things.
I'm not saying they can domesticate them, but they can
train them. They can somewhat tame them.
But James said no one can tame the tongue.
No one can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil.
The only thing that can tame our tongues is the Holy Spirit is
the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that the words that I
speak, they are spirit, they are life.
The words that I speak, the law of the Lord is perfect.
It converts the soul. The Holy Spirit is the only one
that can control our tongues and it is like a poison, you know
it. It can strike and do damage like
poison and spread just that fast, just like poison.
And it can poison an entire community.
It can poison an entire group of people and cause them to all
have the same negative concept about a different point.
We see it now all the time when people come up and speak about
political things. They can say one thing and they
can have an impact and and and people will will will have a
negative a negative perception things because of things that
people speak. One of the things that I think
is really an issue and and then the church, you know, when when
James talked about everybody shouldn't be be teachers.
Anytime a teacher of the word of God begins to call sin.
OK, that's a major problem because people here, a pastor
say that this sin is OK and they leave their feeling that their
sin is OK. I'm sorry.
I don't care what Bible you look in, at least if it's the Holy
Bible. You will never see where it's OK
to be a homosexual. You will never see where it's OK
to fornicate. You will never see where it's
OK. To commit sexual immorality,
you'll never see that. It's not OK to be an adulteress.
It's not OK. You'll never see that.
So it's the it's the word of God and we have to stand on that.
But if you hear but if they hear that from the pulpit because of
the authority that a teacher has it can cause people to be
stumbled. Let's go on verse 9 says with it
we bless our our father and with it we curse men who have been
made in the similitude of God out of the same mouth proceed
blessing and cursing my brother. These things are not to be so I
I love the fact that James is saying here that you bless the
Creator, you worship God, you praise him with your lips, you
exalt him, you, you, you do all these things with your lips and
you and and you worship and praise him.
But then out of the same mouth you can turn from him, and out
of your same mouth you'll curse. Your brother or sister.
You'll speak harsh to or about your brother and sister after
worshipping the God. Not only do you worship the
creator and then you curse his creation and he says this should
not be so. This should not be so.
We can't that that that cannot happen.
It's not it's, it's, it's like, it's, it's like Jesus said when
he said your, your lips worship me, but your heart is far from
me. That's not the heart of the Lord
to do that. And then he makes this and we're
going to kind of bring this to an end.
Praise and worship team. You can come forward in verse
11. He says, does a spring send
forth freshwater and bitter out of the same opening?
Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives or grapevines or
Grapevine bear figs? Thus, no spring yields both salt
water and freshwater. The Lord is, you know, James is
saying here that there's no way that righteousness and
unrighteousness should be coming out of the same source.
It doesn't come out of the same source.
It just doesn't. It just doesn't.
We, you know, when, when you, when you know freshwater and
I've, you know, I've traveled, I'm sure many of you have
traveled and been to many things.
You've seen many scenic things, but I don't think there's ever a
time when I've ever seen a freshwater and bitter water come
out of the same source. I've never seen that.
And if I'm at home, if I'm at home, if I turn my water faucet
on and there's freshwater or there's good tasting water that
comes out. And then the next time I turn on
and it's bitter water that comes out, I'm calling the plumber
because something's wrong. There's something wrong with the
source. There's something wrong with
what's, you know, with the source.
I turn the water on. It's nice and clear.
I cut off. I cut it on again.
It's brown. Yeah.
I'm calling the plumber. I'm calling the plumber.
So we, if we speak words of life, if we speak words of
gentleness and, and words of love and words of kindness and
goodness and the next thing out of our mouths, and it's a habit,
we're doing this on a regular basis.
Next thing out of our mouths, we're speaking harsh words,
we're cursing against our brothers and sisters or we're
we're we're we're, we're, you know, we're we're gossiping,
slandering our brothers and sisters.
Then something is wrong and it's wrong.
There's something wrong with the source.
There's something wrong with my heart.
I need to go to the I need to call Jesus because there's
something wrong with my heart. James is saying here, and this
is a very, very important passage, passage of Scripture.
And this is something I had to repent of when I was studying
this time and time again because even suddenly our words that we
say can be a problem and can hurt someone.
And like we say, you can never get those words back.
Be careful what you say in front of your children.
Watch what you say in front of your children.
Watch how you speak to them. There are things that your kids
hear. You think they're not even
paying attention, and they'll remember for the rest of their
lives. I promise you they will watch.
Who you talk about in front of your kids because you may know
or be able to process those things, but your kids can't.
They start treating people differently based on
conversations they have heard. Be careful what we say in front
of our kids. When we talk about being careful
about our speech. One of the things that we
neglect to practice, that we neglect to do sometimes, is to
practice the holiness of silence, the beauty of silence,
this beauty in silence, being silent.
If you remember Jesus, when he was being threatened, when he
was being verbally abused by his enemies, he would just be
silent. When Pontius Pilate was
questioning him and was saying all these different things about
him, he would just be silent. And let us not forget King
Hezekiah back in Second Kings 18 and 19 when the Assyrian army
came upon him and they and, and, and they started to threaten
Judah. They started to threaten them
and talk about what they're going to do and how, you know,
we took other people's nations. We took other people's land and,
and their gods couldn't do anything about what makes you
think your God is going to do anything about it?
Oh, he could have just ran off. They could have just ran off at
the mouth and just jumped off and just talked about.
He was silent, and he gave commandment to his staff to be.
Silent. To just be quiet.
And they took it before the Lord, and the Lord dealt with
them. I'm saying that sometimes we can
just be silent when we feel that we're offended, when we feel
that we've been done wrong, when we feel that we've been verbally
attacked, when we. Feel that we have the right to
strike out. Sometimes it just be silent.
Allow the Lord to deal with it. Allow the Lord to speak to your
heart. Allow the Lord to tell you what
to say. Be slow to be quick to hear.
Be slow to speak and to be slow to wrath.
I don't know about you, but I know that.
I can be prone to reacting. And responding with my mouth in
ways that I shouldn't. And it doesn't have to be foul
language. But you know when your heart,
when you're saying something condescending to somebody, you
know in your heart when you're being what we call passive
aggressive and our response to people.
And I know that over the years, I myself have said things to
people that hurt them, just as people have said things to me
that has hurt me. And today I want to go to the
source that can help my heart. And I'm asking you if you would
join me, if that's you, If that's you, would you meet me
here? So we together can go before
their Lord Jesus Christ, the source that He can talk and deal
with our hearts so that we don't have to speak in ways that would
be detrimental. We don't have speaking ways that
are ungodly. We don't have to speak in ways
that hurt people. Lord, I've done that before, and
I don't want to do that anymore. Will anybody join me here?
You can come on up. Come on up.
I'm going to come down here with you.
Hey, man, we can all need to go to the source, the source of our
hearts. Anybody else?
We'll wait for you. Anybody else want to come?
Jesus hears us.
He responds to us. He can touch our hearts.
Not man, not friends. He can touch our hearts.
Anybody else? You're welcome to come up even
as we're praying. Let's let's grab hands.
Let's come in agreement with him this morning, Father, we're
coming because we realize our weaknesses.
We realize our frailties. We realize.
That when we're not under control of the Holy Spirit, that
we are out of control. And when we're out of control,
we become under the control of an evil source.
We become under the control of the world.
We become under the control of our flesh.
We become under the control of demonic influence.
Father, we're asking you this morning as we come humble before
you, Lord. Lord, please forgive us of
things that we have spoken, things that we have said that
has come out of a hard heart, that has come out of an angry
heart, maybe even a hateful hearted times.
Father, we ask that you would forgive us of the times that we
weaponized our tongues and slandered or gossiped or said
something in in response, Lord, because we know that it will
hurt them worse than what they just hurt us.
Father, we pray today, Lord, as we come before you as a unit in
unity. Father, we together or saying
that we have sinned and have come short of your glory.
Father, we ask that you forgive us, that you will wash us, that
you will cleanse us, that you will purify our hearts and
purify our tongues, 'cause us, O God, to be a a a a a, a spring
of life to people. Cause us to be a spring that
speaks kindness and love and faithfulness.
Cause us to be a spring that brings joy to people and that
seeks peace. Lord and, and, and, and have
self-control. Father God, we're coming to you,
the only true source for true life.
You are the way, You are the truth, and you are the life.
Lord, open our hearts today, forgive us of our sins, and we
repent, and we ask that you give us the power to turn.
Away from them, Lord, that our words would be words of life.
We ask these things during the name of our Savior and our Lord.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
The Lord bless y'all.
Amen. I guess we should do communion,
shouldn't we? I am so sorry.
I am so sorry Clark is back there holding his communion
peace like one of Louis. Where you going?
Is it any wonder that the very one that would talk to us today
about speech is the one who came into nothing and he spoke and
said let there be light, and there was light ever since he
spoke? And there were stars in the sky,
there were a moon and sun. And he spoke and it was
vegetation and there was water that's separated from the land.
He spoke. And there was a development of
animals, fishes in the sea and birds of the sky, and four
footed beast that walked along the earth.
He spoke, the Bible says, by the word of his mouth, the word of
his mouth. He held up everything.
And the Bible also says that he put his word above his name.
So would it be any doubt that he has an interest in US speaking
things that are pure, things that are good, things that are
honest, lovely? And not only did he do it from
heaven, but then he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, who gave us
the example of one who spoke love and life in unity,
righteousness, goodness, and showed us the way of faith.
And for that He died for us because of our sins.
Father, we thank you that you loved us enough to be our
sacrifice. And this morning, Father, as we
look back on that day in which you were betrayed, and you took
bread, and after you gave thanks, you broke it.
And you said, take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you.
Eat this in remembrance of me, the same manner you also took
the cup. And after you suck, you said,
this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
And he shed His blood for all of us, and also for those who are
to come. And His blood is just as
evicacious today as it was 2000 years ago.
It still cleanses us from all sin.
You said drink this and as often as you drink it, drinking in
remembrance of me, for as often as you eat this bread and drink
this cup. You do show the Lord's death
till we come. Amen.