It’s Hard to Lick Your Tongue

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh, Durham, North Carolina.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovich. Today we're continuing our teaching series through the Book of James with a brand new sermon, and it has a really unique title. It's called, It's Hard to Lick Your Tongue. And I guess if you take that title literally, you realize that it certainly is hard to lick your tongue.

In fact, I'm not even sure how that would work. But seriously, today's topic is very important. Tongue is such a small part of our bodies, and yet it has astonishing power because it controls our ability to both wound and heal and to bless and to curse. Pastor J.D. walks through James chapter three to show us the dangers of the tongue and what it can reveal about the state of our hearts.

Time to lick this thing for good. Are you with me? Let's open our Bibles in our hearts. Here's Pastor J.D.

James chapter three, if you have your Bibles, James chapter three. As you are turning there, I have a story that some of you are going to hate and some of you are going to love. A few years ago, a few years ago, the car that I was driving at the time was a 2003 Honda Pilot. It started to smell weird. It was an older car and I thought maybe I'd left one of the windows cracked or maybe one of the seams, you know, little rubber things had broken and when it was raining, maybe the carpet got wet and it had mildewed or something like that. So I pulled it into the garage and I turned a fan on the inside to dry it out, but that didn't work. Smell didn't go away.

So I took out all the mats and shampooed them and scrubbed the floorboards, but that didn't work either. Still smelled. Eventually, I figured out that the smell seemed to be coming through the vents of the car, so I bought one of those little deodorizers shaped like a pine tree and hung it right on one of the vents, but that didn't work either. If anything, the smell was getting worse. So I bought one of those little pine tree thingies for each of the vents, thinking that might take care of it.

The inside of my car looked and smelled like a Christmas tree, except a Christmas tree hiding a dead body or something like that. So I figured that I should clean the whole ventilation system, but I'm not a mechanic and I have no idea how to take apart and put back together an air conditioner for a car. So I found a little air intake valve that's down near the floorboard on the passenger side of the car.

You know what I'm talking about? I found that little air intake thing and I took a full bottle of Lysol disinfectant spray, I turned the AC on full blast and sprayed the entire bottle into the air intake so that the disinfectant would cycle through the whole system. I thought that was particularly ingenious, by the way, and I am still proud of it, but still smelled after I was done with that.

By this point, the smell had become almost unbearable, like middle school cabin at student camp on the fourth night of camp, unbearable, that kind of smell. So begrudgingly, begrudgingly, I took my Honda Pilot to my mechanic. I dropped it off.

I braced for the $400 bill, which is what I felt like it costs just to drive the car onto the lot of a mechanic. He called me less than an hour later and he said, it's all ready for you, son. And I said, well, that was fast.

What was wrong with it? He said, well, I'll explain it when you get down here. So I pulled up to his shop. When I pulled up, he had the weirdest looking grin on his face and he said nothing. He just held up this poor, dead, mangled rat by the tail.

He said, there's your smell, son. And suddenly I remembered this incident a couple of weeks before when I'd started the car up and I heard this grinding sound, but then it stopped. So I figured whatever was wrong in there just kind of worked itself out.

You know how these things are. My mechanic was laughing so hard, he wouldn't even let me pay him for it. No, no, no, no. Fixing this was my pleasure, son. You've done me a favor. By the way, true story, true story. That mechanic got saved and baptized at our church a few years later.

Okay. And I like to think that that poor rat played a little part of his conversion story. So why, why do I share with you this terrible story? It's because today I want to talk about something small in the, shall we say, the ventilation system of your life, so to speak, that has the capacity to make your whole life stink, no matter how many little proverbial air fresheners you hang on your vents. For some of you, it stinks right now.

This morning, it's already stunk. And you're the last person to even know about it. James chapter three, verse two is where we will begin to read. James says, we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouth of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. That's what the tongue is like, he says. It's something that guides the whole body, or verse four.

Look at the shifts also. Here's a second analogy, by the way. Though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. Verse five, here's his third analogy. By the way, they always say that for public speakers, you should never use more than one analogy or more than one illustration to make your point.

James clearly has not heard that, so here is his third analogy. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. In the same way, the tongue is a fire. It is a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the course of life, the entire course of life. And that is set on fire by hell itself. For every kind of beast and bird or reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind.

There's your fourth analogy. But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. With it, we bless our Lord and Father, and with that same tongue on the same day, sometimes in the same conversation, we curse people who are made in 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 water and salt water? There's your fifth analogy. Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives or a grapevine? Can it produce figs? There is your sixth analogy.

Neither then can a salt pond yield fresh water. Now, class, what thing are we talking about? What small thing are we talking about that causes all these problems and prompts all these analogies?

What is it? That's right, the tongue, the tongue. And it's why I've titled this message, It's Hard to Lick Your Tongue. Okay? And yes, I came up with that myself and I'm pretty proud of it. All jokes aside, I was really very, very convicted as I was writing this message this week. I struggle with this so much.

I would give myself a failing grade at this. So please bear with me today. I'm just going to try to be the messenger that is preaching to you and also to me. In this passage, James makes three points about our tongues, our words. And then James points us toward a solution. So here we go.

Point number one. James says the tongue has incredible power. He compares it, verse three, to a bit like you might use to control a horse. In verse four, to a rudder that steers a ship, both very small, relatively in themselves, but both with incredible ability to control the large, powerful bodies they're attached to. I love reading about World War II history, particularly naval warfare. It's probably because my grandfather, I've told you, served on an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific in World War II. And one of my favorite sea battles, sea battle stories, is the story about the sinking of the German battleship the Bismarck by the British Navy in 1941. The Bismarck was the largest, most well-fortified battleship Germany or any nation had ever produced. It was so fast, so strongly built that it was considered unsinkable, the unsinkable Bismarck. It could outrun any other ship on the water.

It was so steel reinforced that it could withstand a considerable amount of torpedoes and bombs. Well, British aerial recon unexpectedly sighted the Bismarck on May 21st, 1941 in the North Atlantic. A couple of British planes fired some torpedoes at it, and they assumed that they had missed because they saw no explosion, which meant that the Bismarck would get away because it was so much faster than all the British ships. But to everyone's surprise, as the Bismarck was sailing away, it suddenly turned back toward the British Navy. Then it started to zigzag and then started just to go in circles. That torpedo, they later figured out, had jammed the rudder, and this incredible ship could not go straight any longer. It could only go in circles. At that point, the British Navy just pummeled it like a sitting duck with bombs and torpedoes.

The mighty, unsinkable Bismarck sent to the bottom of the Atlantic because of a jammed rudder. Your tongue is like that, James says. It's a relatively small part of your body, but it determines the entire course of your life. People form their opinions of you based on your words. They determine your intelligence by your words. They decide if they want to be friends with you based on your words. You begin and end relationships with your words. With your tongue, you draw people close. With your tongue, you push them away.

I mean, just think for a minute about how words, specific words, have changed your life. I love you. I'm proud of you.

We want you. You're not very good. We're going to have to go a different direction. I want to break up. Your best relationships came about through words. Your most estranged relationships became that way through words. In verse 5, James compares the tongue to a fire.

Massive, destructive fires in our world are started by the smallest of sparks. Think about the destruction that has come into the world through words. It's been said, for example, that 125 people died for each word of Adolf Hitler's manifesto Mein Kampf. We know about the horror of the Holocaust, but we don't often think about how it all began with words. Not with weapons.

The death-to-word ratio in Mao's Little Red Book would be even higher. Think about the destruction that has come into your life personally through words. If I asked most of you to recount the most painful moment of your life, chances are it would involve something that was said to you or about you. For many of you struggling with the effects of trauma, your trauma goes back, in part, to things said to you or about you.

Or those of you with low self-esteem, it was what your parents or your friends said about you. Or think about the pain that your words have caused others. Our counseling director, Dr. Brad Hambrick, says, he says, complete this sentence, if only I hadn't blanked. He says, for most of us, the next word in that sentence would be the word, said. Right?

For most of us. If your marriage has fallen apart, chances are it was due in large part to words. What was said, what was not said, how it was said. Dr. Hambrick says, there is almost no such thing where the couple speaks, no such thing as a bad marriage where the couple speaks well to each other.

Some of you have lost jobs because of careless words or injudicious emails. I knew a guy one time who was so incredibly talented. I mean, so gifted, got results, almost always had a good attitude when you saw him. Pleasant, easy to get along with, but man, he would get behind that keyboard and he would turn into Terminator 2, leaving nothing but scorched earth behind. Incredibly talented guy whose career came crashing down because of his inability to control his words. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. To learn more about this ministry, visit jdgreer.com. We'll rejoin our teaching in just a moment, but I wanted to tell you about a daily email devotional from Pastor J.D. that we think could become an important part of your journey with Jesus this year. Couldn't we all use encouragement each day to remind us of God's love and his promises and his guidance? I know the busyness of life can quickly erode any joy that we feel in our walk with God, so why not shore up those foundations each morning with a word from the Lord? The devotionals even follow along with our current teaching here on the program so you can stay plugged into Summit Life regardless of your schedule. Make 2024 the year you truly stay plugged into God's word daily with us. Sign up for this free resource right now at jdgreer.com slash resources.

That's J-D-G-R-E-E-A-R dot com slash resources. Now let's return for the conclusion of today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor J.D. Maybe you know the infamous story of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. You may know the story of their epic boxing battle and the bitter feud that surrounded it, but what you may not know about them is that previously, before this, they had been the best of friends. What ended the friendship was when Muhammad Ali, in an effort to promote his first fight against Frazier, Joe Frazier, started calling Joe Frazier an Uncle Tom and an ugly gorilla. The war of words got so bitter that not only did it end the friendship, it left deep reservoirs of hatred and bitterness, particularly in Frazier's soul. Biographers say that Frazier went to his grave a bitter man, bragging that he was the one who gave Muhammad Ali his Parkinson's disease, even rejoicing over Ali's sickness. That hatred was provoked not by fist, it was provoked by words. Maybe you got some relationship in your life like that, like a bit, like a rudder, like a fire. The tongue contains the power of life and death.

James, the second point. The tongue is nearly impossible to tame. The tongue is nearly impossible to tame. Verse 7, James says, every kind of beast, birds, reptiles, a crab, a sea creature, a snake, a fish, they can all be tamed, and they have been tamed by mankind.

There ain't no human being alive that can tame the tongue. People got all kinds of strange pets. Recently, my family and I were at a small horse farm, and the owner of this horse farm said, you gotta see my pig. And she mentioned this pig like four times to the point that it became apparent that she was really, really proud of this pig, and it was going to cause relational damage with her if we did not go see this pig. So I rounded up the kids, we went and we looked, and he was out there, you know, rooting around, doing pig stuff, and we walk over to the fence, and it comes over and it lifts up that ugly, snout face of his to see if we had any food, of course.

After he saw we didn't have any food, he wasn't that interested in us. I told my wife so that the owner could not hear me, I'm like, that might be the ugliest animal I have ever seen. And it just looks so dumb. So, I mean, just dumb. But that lady was so proud of her pig that I went home and I did a little research. Sure enough, the internet agrees that pigs actually make great pets. According to this one article I read, pigs are the fourth most intelligent animal on the earth.

I know, I did not believe it either. So I kept digging, kept rooting around like a pig would do, right? I was learning from the pig. Sure enough, pigs consistently rank in the top four or five most intelligent animals on earth. Higher than dogs on every list I saw. By the way, cats don't even make the top 10. And that's because cats are nothing but evil personifieds, okay? So learn your lesson. This article said that we don't usually realize the pig's intelligence because they have an unrelenting quest for food and so they're always rooting around.

It seems like they're single focused. And they got this complex about being top pig that can cause undue aggression even against the owner of the house. This article explained that once that pig picks a spot to do his business, you might as well concede that part of your territory, your yard, your house, that's theirs.

Because you ain't never getting that piece of property back. But the most interesting line of this whole article was this one and I quote, with consistent discipline and the use of some mild electric shock equipment, pigs can be trained to be darling pets. I'm not even sure what to do with that, to be honest with you. The point is, sure enough, every kind of beast can be tamed. But no human being, even with all of our positive thinking and our self-help techniques, none of us can tame the tongue. It's an unruly evil, James says. It's a world of unrighteousness, verse 6. It's empowered by the flames of hell itself. That thing in your mouth. It would be easier to tame a spitting cobra than it would be that tongue of yours.

It is full of deadly poison, verse 8, and it strikes at the most inopportune times. Think about how often you've said something that now you so, so wish you could just take back. Again, remember Brad's observation. Complete the sentence.

If only I hadn't blanked. For most of you, the next word in that sentence will be the word said. These forest fires that James is talking about in verse 5, they're not usually caused by arson. They're usually caused by carelessness, right? A lot of the fires in your life are because something slipped out, right? A hateful comment, an outburst of anger, a degrading comment, or the verbalization of an inappropriate lust. What an arson.

It was just carelessness. Because nobody can tame the tongue, and that's because, number 3, James says the tongue reveals the depravity of our heart. The tongue reveals the depravity of our heart, verse 12.

Your words are the single best indicator of the state of your heart. If you remember back when we were studying through James 1, I told you to imagine if you had a little... Remember, I said, imagine if you had a little monitor on the side of your head that displayed for everybody exactly, unfiltered, whatever you were thinking at any moment.

How horrid that would be. Well, see, our words are the closest thing to having that monitor. Your words are the clearest and best indicator of what's actually in your heart, which is why Jesus said every idle word will be brought into evidence at the judgment. And that's because, he says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

It means what is down in there is inevitably going to come out. I explained to you when we were going through James 1 that when you say something you regret, when you give an angry word, something harsh or condemning or judgmental, a degrading comment, the verbalization of a lust, later you're embarrassed by it. And so you want to go back and apologize. You want to make amends.

And I asked you, I was like, how do you do that? You always go back to the person you said it to and you say something like what? I didn't really mean that. That's not really me. But I pointed out the irony of that is that in that moment, the moment that you said it, you sure did mean it. You'd never meant anything more in your life.

And if that wasn't really you, well, then who was it from? No, the truth is that you're frustrated at yourself for not better filtering it. But just because you successfully filter it doesn't mean it's not still in your heart. We're frustrated with ourselves for not putting better filters on our mouths when what we should do is lament what our words reveal about the depravity of our hearts. We keep trying to fix ourselves through our fresheners.

Air fresheners are going to help us, but there's a dead rat in the deep recesses of your heart. And that dead rat is your sinful nature and it is smelling up your entire life, which is why so many of our words stink. In verse six, James says that the tongue is set on fire by the flames of hell itself. That is not just a hyperbolic metaphor. It means that the powers of sin and corruption and hell itself, our depravity, they're at work in our heart and it manifests from our tongues.

Hear this, a tongue problem is ultimately a hard problem. And that's what James hints at in verse 12. Verse 12, can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives? No matter how much a fig tree wants to produce olives, no matter how many books it reads on olive production, no matter how many seminars it goes to on olive production, no matter how much willpower it exerts, no matter how much it hangs around with olive trees, if fig trees ever produce an olives, neither can a salt pond, he says, yield fresh water. Your problem, your problem, James says, is that your heart is a saltwater pond of undrinkable water and no amount of filtering or deodorizing is gonna change that.

You got a dead rat in your central ventilation system and no amount of those little pine tree thingies or scrubbing your floorboards is gonna change that. The heart is deceitful above all things, the prophet Jeremiah said. And desperately wicked, who can know it? Jeremiah goes on, chapter 30, to say that the wound of that heart is incurable. Or like Jesus himself said in Matthew 15, 19, out of the heart, out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander, all kinds of depravity come out of that heart. Our culture says, oh, follow your heart.

I'm telling you, that is the last thing that you want to follow. Your heart is a mess and the worst things that slip out of your mouth are just a fraction of the actual depravity that's down there. The tongue is nearly impossible to tame, and that's just another daily reminder of how much we depend on God's grace each day. Today's teaching was called It's Hard to Lick Your Tongue, and it's the latest installment of our brand-new teaching series through the book of James. Pastor JD, we're all about being practical here at Summit Life. Tell us, what is one specific foundational thing that we can do to increase our faith and thrive outside of church in our day-to-day lives? Yeah, I always loved Molly listening to preachers who could soar into the heavens with theology and inspiration. But at the end of the day, I want somebody to give me the tools to know how to practically change my life, and that's what we're committed to here at Summit Life. And we found that if there's one foundational practice that can turn Scripture from something you know into something you live, it's Scripture memory, which is why we've gone ahead and prepared something special just for you, a pack of 52 Scripture memory cards.

We've conveniently sized them at two-and-a-half or three-and-a-half inches. They're perfect for sticking on the fridge or right in front of your tachometer or speedometer on your car. Don't speed, but put it right there that you can see it every time you look down. You can put it in your wallet if you carry one of those or your purse.

I think you'll find them very convenient. Serve your set today at jdgrier.com, and let's embark on this journey of faith together, armed with the transforming truth of Scripture. Ask for the 2024 Scripture memory cards when you donate $35 or more to this ministry today by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220, or give online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vitovich, inviting you to join us next time as we continue this incredibly practical teaching on the explosive power of our words. Don't miss it right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.