Whether it’s a funny sound on tik tok or a slogan for your favorite company or a line from a movie. Words stick. They play over and over in the back of our heads until we replace them with some new set of words. It’s not just catchy song lyrics and the Mcdonald's slogan that stick with us though. It’s that compliment your mom gave you when you were 8 that you never forgot. It’s what your best friend said behind your back when they swore they would never do that. The words of the coach who said you just aren’t good enough to make the team. It’s the lie someone said about you that spread across the whole school.
Words:
They sit in our heads and change the way we view ourselves. Words have so much power and yet we are so careless with them.
It’s devastating. How many times have you lied about someone you love without giving it a second thought? How much of your time is spent gossipping? Doesn’t it bother you how easily those cuss words just come out of your mouth? Doesn’t it bother you that it feels like no matter what we do we can’t seem to get this under control?
I think it bothered James. Look at James 3:2-10,“Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.”
`Let’s pause here for a second. He just said if we could control our tongues we would be perfect? What does that mean? I think James realizes that the tongue is one of the hardest parts of our lives to get under our control. If we can do that we can do anything. Basically he is saying this is really hard. James 3:3-10 says,
“We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches.But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself. People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!”
It can set your whole life on fire. It can ruin your life. Your own words can destroy you and destroy someone else.
I think there are a few things we do with our words that cause a lot of damage. That set really big fires. Let’s break them down.
1. We Lie and we gossipHave you have heard a rumor about someone at your school? Or had a rumor spread about you at your school? Have you helped spread a rumor at your school? I know I did. I remember spreading lies and seeing how hurt that person was. I remember having lies spread about me and feeling so terrified that people would believe it. You know the feeling?
It’s even worse when it’s not a lie. When you tell somebody a secret or something personal about your life because you thought you could trust them. Then you find out that everyone knows about it. You feel so exposed and so hurt. You start to build up walls and by the time most of us get to high school we don’t tell anyone anything real about our lives, because we are terrified to trust people.
When we lie we hurt people. When we gossip we hurt people. But we also hurt ourselves. We all know that person in our family and friend group who is the “gossip” All they do is talk about other people and everyone knows it. When we lie we hurt our reputation. We become untrustworthy. We get caught and get in trouble. We lose friendships because no one wants to spend time with us.
2. We cuss. We get in fights and cuss people out. We drop the f word like it’s nothing. You stub your toe and stuff flying out of your mouth. We use cuss words as the punch lines to our jokes and every other caption on instagram.
It’s just not honoring God. It’s giving in to what everyone else is doing. It is like everyone else at your school. If someone heard you talking would they assume you are a Christian or would they think you are no different than everyone else they are surrounded with?
3. We’re mean.
Yeah maybe you don’t lie or gossip very often. Maybe you don’t struggle with cussing all the time. But you are just mean. You don’t think about how your words make the person you are talking to feel. You just say what you’re thinking. You say “Oh I am just blunt or I am just honest” But really you are just mean. You don’t care enough about people’s feelings to stop and think before you let words come out of your mouth.
And you have hurt people. Your words have stung your best friend, your parents, your siblings. Your words sit in the back of their minds making them even more insecure than they already were. Your words tore them apart. Your words reminded them that they aren’t good enough. Your words made them question their looks and their talents and their passions.
You know how I know this? Cause I have been both. I have been the mean person and I have been the person dealing with the mean comments. I think we all have. We have all used our words to point out someone else's flaws. We have all felt the pain of a well-timed insult.
Maybe your parents told you you’re not good enough. Maybe someone called you ugly. Maybe a friend was “joking” about your grades or your clothes and that joke stuck with you for years. Some of you are still haunted by the way someone used their words to tear you down.
To echo James in verse 10. My friends, this is not right. This is not how we are meant to live. God did not give us the gift of speech to be wasting it.
Think about it this way. James says a small spark can start a great fire. The thing is, fire is not always a bad thing. A giant destructive forest fire, that's a problem. But a fire in a fireplace keeps someone warm. A fire on a stove cooks your food. A fire in a firepit brings friends together. You can start good fires with your words.
You can encourage people to start something new. You can compliment someone who has been really down. You can give people hope and peace and joy all with just the words out of your mouth. You could make people’s lives better with your words.
But let’s be real. We don’t do that. We spend most of our words on tearing people down. We lie, we gossip, we cuss people out. We’re sarcastic and mean and we start fires that come in and burn everything up.
We have to find a way to control our tongues and in order to do that I want to tell you a story.
Our pastor Todd says that growing up he had a really big problem with cussing. He did it all the time. Even after he became a christian he still struggled to change this part of his life. But he realized something we all have to realize. Words matter. So he started to count. Every single day he counted the cuss words he said that day. At the end of the day he would pray and ask God to forgive him for every single word and he would ask God to help him say one less cuss word the next day. He says it took him 9 months to get to a day where he didn’t cuss at all. He committed to this for 9 months because he knew it mattered to God and it mattered to him.
If you want to change your words the first thing you need to do is realize how much this matters. We have to stop being so careless and start taking our words seriously. Whether your problem is lying, cussing, or just being plain mean. Each of us needs to commit today to making a change. And we need to recognize that we can’t do this alone. James literally said no one can tame their own tongue. We need God’s help. We need to pray every single day asking God to forgive us for the way we used our words and ask him to help us do better tomorrow.
Remember what we saw in verse 2. This is hard. Changing your words is not going to happen over night, But if we
1. take this seriously, 2. take it day by day, 3, ask God for help
We will get control over our words. We will stop destroying people and start building people up. We will stop setting forest fires but we will use our small spark for good.
©2024 Sagebrush Church
