Please turn in your Bibles at this time to James chapter 3, the book of James quite toward the end of your New Testaments, tucked away just behind the mammoth book of Hebrews. James chapter 3, a very practical book and one that we went through not too many years ago with Pastor Renahan's exposition. And I want to preach this morning from something that he preached from at that time, the first 12 verses of James, and offer to you some very practical advice. Of course, it's more than advice. It's counsel from the word of God itself. But I want to give this to you at this time of the year, because this is the first Sunday of the year. And on an occasion like this, we are thinking ahead We're thinking toward the new year and what might come upon us as individuals, upon our relationships, our homes, our workplaces, our church. And this could be a very cheerful year. It hasn't started out very well, just in terms of our cheerfulness. There's a lot of sickness going around. It's hit my family. And I spent probably an hour this morning trying to figure out what I would do If all of a sudden nausea hit me in the middle of the sermon, where would I go, what would I do? For your sakes, I'm planning to go out that door as fast as I can and to the front lawn. If any of the deacons want to know what's happening, you can explain and calm everyone down and bring me some water. It struck my family and I'm probably contagious, some of you as well. And others of you listening live stream are at home suffering in that way. But I can tell you that there is something much worse to fear than physical affliction and sickness, especially when it comes to our own local church, which we love so dear, Trinity Reformed Baptist Church. It's the kind of thing that spreads like wildfire, even more than the flu bug. And I'm referring to sins of the tongue, our speech, and what we say. I guess if you want to entitle this message something, it would be, don't burn the house down this year, please. Don't play with matches. Don't allow your tongue to be that cause in the cause and effect chain of events that can lead to a forest fire. Whether it be in your workplace, whether it be in your home, with your relationship with your wife or your children or your husband, or especially here in the church, we are accountable for our behavior. We know that all things whatsoever come to pass are ordained of God, but we also know with equal conviction that every cog in that complex cause and effect train is something that we have a part in and are responsible for. And much of what sets on fire, as James says, the course of the world, the course of all events is our own tongue and what we say or what we don't say. And I'm going to focus more on the things that we do say and the strong emphasis today will be on learning more and more how to be more quiet than we are. Now there is a kind of guilty silence that we're all familiar with. The guilty silence where we ought to be saying something and we're not, but I think more often than not, we fall into the other ditch, which is we just say either too much or we say things that are harmful, hurtful, devastating, and contagious, and can bring the church down to nothing. And don't think this is remedial. I'm not trying to remedy anything that's happening right now that I know of. This is preventative medicine. So take it as such. Don't go home thinking, I wonder who's really upset Arden Hodgins this week. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with basically trying to start out the new year with some decent, timely reminders about the devastating effects of the tongue. As Thomas Brooks, the Puritan, said, of all the members in the body, there is none so serviceable to Satan as the tongue. And of course, The tongue, as I use that word, is just an analogy because what James is referring to here in chapter three, in taming the tongue, is not so much the physical member that exists within our mouths, of course, without which we would have a hard time talking, but there are other ways of speech. He's talking about speech. The tongue is just a metaphor for that. So are words. Our speech, even body language would be included under this because body language says something, speaks something. And so all of that is to be understood as underneath the category of the tongue. So let's control our tongues this year. Let's not burn everything down that we have or that we're hoping for all because we weren't able to control our tongue. Now the way I want to approach this is first of all by reading the first 12 verses of James 3, and then I want to explain the text very simply, and I hope it will help you bring to mind some of the things that you heard when Pastor Renahan preached from it, as well as some of you ladies who attend the ladies' study. You're going through a book right now by Paul David Tripp, which is, I hope all of this will just reinforce everything you've been studying. And we'll continue to be studying on this subject. And so after we're done explaining the passage, which I have a three-point outline for, we will then apply the passage with, again, a three-point outline. And those three points of explanation, those three points of application, have several bullet points underneath of them. But hopefully, all of this will be profitable for us. If you're someone who's taking notes and you're using a pencil, I hope you brought a sharpener. And I hope you have enough ink in your pens. But nevertheless, it is a profitable thing to put these in remembrance throughout the year. Okay, let's read the text first. We'll explain it and then apply it. James chapter three, verses one through 12. 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 mouths of horses 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 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. 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, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird and reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 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 it 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 and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives? Or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. And I hope that most of you are familiar with that passage. I will not be reading it or any portion of it other than just simply making allusion to it for the remainder of our time today in order that we might be able to fit in everything that we would like to cover today. Now in explaining this text, I want you to notice that the text really does easily divide into three parts. And these are the three parts. There is in verse one what we could call the accountable tongue, the tongue that is accountable. In the second verse, we find the indicative tongue, the tongue and what it says, the words that come out of our mouth is indicative of something. And then thirdly, the ironical tongue, verses three through 12, the tongue has an irony about it, at least in our fallen condition with remaining sin. And that's what James points out in various illustrations. He shows what an irony this thing called the tongue is. that we have, even as Christian people, and remember, he is writing to Christian people. Now that's the explanation, and I haven't finished explaining, I'm just giving you the outline, but then when the application time comes, I want to apply it in these three ways, just by asking three questions. The first question is, why do we have tongues? Why did God give them to us? The second question is, in what ways do we sin with our tongue? And we won't be able to list all of them because we would be here for a very, very long time. But we'll suggest certain categories of sins that we commit with our tongue. And then the third and last application this morning will be how may we govern our tongue? How may we govern our tongue, our speech? And I'll give you some directions, largely of which came from some of my Puritan friends, the dead brains that exist within my library, dead men's brains. And I think you'll appreciate that. And then I'll give you a quote, a Puritan quote alert as we go through the message today. I also want to give credit to Pastor Renahan as well as Pastor Tom Lyon, my former pastor many years ago. who I have gathered bits and pieces from their notes on this passage. So let's begin with that initial outline that I gave you in explaining the text, and look at verse one, the accountable tongue. This is the first main point, the accountable tongue. Not many of you should become teachers, he says, my brothers. Well, why? Well, because those who teach talk more, and they talk to more people, therefore influence more people, and if they're not saying the right things, woe be to them. They are more accountable than other people. Now some might think verse one doesn't have anything to do with the tongue in terms of people in the church. It just has to do with pastors or teachers and those who stand in front of others and teach, but it really is part of the same cloth here. He's referring to the underlying fact of the matter, that the more people in your sphere of influence, the more accountable you are. in the way in which you use your tongue. And maybe he was dealing at the time, James perhaps, as the pastor of the church there in Jerusalem, so many thousands of people there, much bigger church than ours, but maybe he was dealing with a lot of men who wanted to be teachers, striving and pursuing office perhaps, and he was warning them, please remember, It's not an easy job and there's a certain amount of sobriety and solemnity with which the office is to be entered even if it's not an office in the church, even if it's just a Sunday school class, even if it's just a small group. If you have influence, even if it's your own home and your children are listening to you and watching you and observing you, This is an important thing and God will hold us accountable. How God will do that, I don't know. But even for Christian people, there will be an answering. No condemnation to those who are in Christ, but there will be judgment and an answering to our master for how we've used our tongues and how we've influenced people for good or ill. So don't be so quick to want to be that teacher, that rabbi. And that is a serious issue concerning the tongue, because to whom much is given, much shall be required. If you've been given a large audience, a large influence, and most of you have a greater influence than you even realize, you will be held accountable. Now that's not to say you should stop talking and take a vow of silence like some monks have done and gone off into the monasteries. But it is a caution about the use of the tongue. Well then secondly, verse two, we can see a second part of this text, the indicative tongue. And James says, if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. The tongue is an index, if you will, or an indicator. When you go to an index or a table of contents in a book, you are basically seeing, in a nutshell, what's in the book. You're getting a glimpse at what lies beneath those covers, those pages. And the tongue, in a very real sense, is exactly that. What comes out of the mouth is what has already been in the heart. And James is saying that an undisciplined tongue is a mark of immaturity. But the perfect man, or I believe he's referring not so much to perfection as it is in Jesus Christ, as we will be one day, but a complete, perfect, well-rounded, mature Christian, he will be able to control his tongue. Why? Because he's already been able to mortify so much of that which is within. His passions, his lusts have also been dealt with and mortified and put to death And he's manifested more and more the element or the fruit of the spirit of self-control. And so what comes out of the mouth is a revelation, it's an indication, it's indicative of what's in the heart, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, the Bible says. So the mature Christian is the one who thinks before he speaks. That involves loving the brethren by the way. It involves knowing them, knowing their hotspots and the kinds of things they're sensitive about and not putting your foot in it when you're around them. Exercising some love. It also involves self-denial and humility because if you have an opinion about something that you know, is minor, secondary, tertiary, doesn't matter, a hill of beans what your opinion is, and you know that by stating your opinion in a dogmatic manner, you will be stepping on the toes of those brethren who are with you, then zip it up. It's not necessary. Inflammatory language like that is not necessary. That's maturity, brethren. knowing when to speak, knowing when not to speak, knowing when to hold it, knowing when to fold it. Tongue is very much an index of our heart. As J.C. Ryle said, our words are the evidence of the state of our hearts as surely as the taste of the water is an evidence of the state of the spring. And I want you to consider this observation. How many flatter themselves with maturity who have not yet bridled their tongue? Don't think you are a mature Christian if you haven't made any strides in this area of bridling your tongue. Thirdly, so we've looked at the accountable tongue, the indicative tongue, now let's look, in explaining this passage, verses three through 12, very quickly, the ironical tongue. What is an irony? An irony is an incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs. And I usually say, and people have known me to say this, we can send men and women to the moon. We can send, as the human race, men and women to space stations. But why in the world can't we make a decent toaster? Now my family has heard that so many times, it's probably going to go down in my biography that they're hopefully going to write someday. But I frustrated with the toaster. I thought getting a better brand name would help. And if people made space rockets the way they make toasters, nobody would have ever gotten to the moon, I can guarantee you that. Now that's an irony, isn't it? How can we have the engineering to send people to outer space and not to make a decent bread toaster? Well, the ironies that James points out are equally poignant. And he points out three. And one of them is the tongue's influence. tongue's influence in verses three through six, how can such a little thing in our face be so powerful? And he's speaking figuratively, of course, because we know that he's referring to speech, which nowadays can also, this includes your blogosphere, what you write on Facebook, Whatever Instagram is, I have no idea. I think it has something to do with pictures. I'm not sure, but pictures communicate as well. Whatever you're doing out there to communicate what's in your heart, think of how little effort is really involved in that. Think of this little tongue that you have. and how much it can influence people in just seconds. And so he uses the illustration of the little bit that goes in the horse's mouth. That little thing can control that huge creature that weighs the size of a car. Isn't that ironic? Something little controlling the horse. The ship's rudder. Who knows how big the ships were back then? Those of you who know history probably can imagine it in your minds. But the ship's rudder, compared to the size of the ship, is fairly small. And yet he says, look at this, the ship's rudder can control the whole direction of the ship. That's ironical. The tongue is the same way. And then he talks about fire and fuel and how a little spark can set off a great blaze, a forest fire can occur from someone who carelessly throws away their cigarette on the ground. These are the ironies that he's pointing out through the analogies of the bit, the ship's rudder, the fire and its fuel. And so the irony of the tongue's influence, it's amazing how much can be helped or destroyed, guided or misguided through the use of the tongue. That's the central lesson. And the lesson here is that we must not underestimate the powerful influence of the tongue. Consider that before you open your mouth. He also points out another irony in verses 7 and 8, the tongue's intractability, its untamability, if you will. The stubbornness and unruliness of the tongue. And this is how he puts it, the irony is this, that man has somehow figured out a way to tame some of the fiercest animals in all of creation. Have you seen, did you see the ones he mentions, birds, reptiles, sea creatures? I'm thinking sea world here, even though I'm sure they didn't have sea world at that time. But he says every kind of beast, there's lion tamers and all, elephants and man was able then and still is now to somehow master those creatures. And yet he can't master his own tongue. He can tame all of those wild beasts, but the wild beast that's right between, that's right in his mouth, right behind that set of teeth, he somehow can't control that. He can't tame it. Isn't that ironic? The unruliness of the tongue. Set on fire of hell, he says, and he's talking to Christians. Even God's people have unruly tongues. And we must view it in that way. We must not think that everything that comes out of our mouths is going to be automatically holy and sprinkled with grace, seasoned with grace, because it won't be. In fact, we should assume that it won't be unless we take some concerted effort to make sure that there's a vetting process that goes on before we just open our mouths and start talking. Then there's a third irony. in verses 9 through 12, and that's the tongue's inconsistency. The tongue's inconsistency. Isn't it ironic, James says, that we can, in one moment, be blessing God and praising God and singing things that are wonderful and good and, in fact, our duty to do as creatures, and especially as redeemed creatures, and then we can turn right around from doing that and cursing a human being who's made in the image of God. These things ought not so to be, he says. He didn't say these things cannot be, because we all know that they are true and they do happen. Even in the context of the local church, we know how often it is that we ourselves can be singing the praises of God and engaging in the most holy acts, even the Lord's Supper itself. And we saw abuses of this in 1 Corinthians 11 that Paul had to address, where they were observing one of the most holy ordinances of the church that the Lord himself had established, and yet in the very observing of it, they were mistreating the poor that were among them and not waiting for them to come to the feast. They were getting drunk and reveling. And we ourselves know that even in the context of worship, even in the context of the local church, we can be blessing God through singing praises and then praying prayers, listening to sermons, and then give somebody the cold shoulder, which is a form of communication, by the way. Or we can say something that is unkind or insensitive. or even destructive. These things ought not so to be, but they are. And James is saying, look at how inconsistent that is, because if we say we love God, how can we turn around and then do something damaging with our tongues to someone whom God made in his own image? That's like going up to a carpenter and looking in his woodshop and seeing all of the things that he's made. and saying, you know, I really love you and I love everything you've done. Now give me a hatchet because I'm about to rip up everything you've done in this workshop. But I love you. All hail to you, carpenter, your great works. But then turn right around and destroy his works. That's absurd. And let me add, it's insane. And you're not just offending people, you're offending God. He takes that personally. And if you offend even one of his little ones, woe to you. He reinforces this inconsistency by talking about a fountain. And if it's spring water, if it's fresh, then it's not going to yield salt water. If it's salt, it's not going to yield fresh. He talks about a grapevine and a fig tree. If it's a grapevine, you're not going to find figs on it. If it's a fig tree, you're not going to find grapes on it. He's saying even nature itself shows that there's a certain predictability here in nature that God has put But what is the tongue? It's unpredictable, it's inconsistent, and it's because of sin. And he doesn't say, well, that's just the way it is, so we're going to have to deal with it. He says, no, these things ought not so to be. There is a duty incumbent upon all of the people of God That even though they know they'll never be perfect in this life, they ought to be striving to be more and more like Christ who never uttered even one word that was sinful or in and of itself untrue or hurtful. If it hurt anyone, it was because it was true and convicting. But he was measured in everything that he said. And we are to imitate him and become conformed to his image. And of course, what he has done on our behalf, both in his life and in his death, are the very things that cause us to want to serve him and to be like him. But we must not overestimate our godliness when it comes to our tongue. The same tongue that blesses God, and we think we're so spiritual, can turn right around and curse man. and acts so inconsistently. Okay, so that's an explanation of the text. Now let's move on to the application of the text. Remember, I had three questions that I'd like for us to ask and attempt to answer, and there's going to be several bullet points under each of these questions to help us in taking what we read from James 3 and fleshing it out in our lives. The first question by way of application is why do we have tongues? What is the purpose of our tongue? What is speech for? And I think if you could narrow it all down, it's pretty obvious what it's for. A lot more could be said, and I believe Brother Arnahan brought this out in his messages on this passage, and I think he also brought it out in some extent when he was referring to God and God's own word, But to really just be practical here in terms of boiling it all down, why do we have tongues? Why do we have speech? Well, first of all, it's to communicate, to carry on the normal business of life, right? Sure helps when you can talk or somehow communicate. If you can't talk, you can communicate in other ways, body language, typing it out. It sure helps to be able to hear too those things that people are saying, but communication is to carry on the business of life. Our tongues are useful and things just couldn't or wouldn't get done without it. A second reason why we have tongues is to minister unto others. to minister to others, to love our neighbors, right? Isn't that what we're supposed to do? Love our neighbors as ourselves. So the employment of our tongue should be engaged in finding out ways in which we can use our tongues to love our neighbors. Mental refreshment to our neighbors. Instruction, comfort, warning, rebuke, encouragement, love, exhortation. Above all, the gospel, communicating the gospel. That's a way of loving our neighbor. And our tongues are given to us in order that we might, as Paul says in Ephesians 4.29, speak that which is good to the use of edifying, building up. And then, of course, the obvious one, we were given our tongues in order to praise and hold communion with God. We were given tongues in order to praise God, to worship him, and to hold communion with him in prayer. And the reason I'm belaboring this is because if we've been given our tongues for these reasons, and I don't have time to list all of the passages in scripture that speak of these very things, to praise God, is that not all throughout the scriptures? Let all who have breath praise his holy name. You know the duty of prayer and praise as well as the privilege of it. That's why we have tongues. To love our neighbors as ourselves. To not break the sixth commandment in particular and use our tongues to bring down someone's life or quality of life. That's a form of murder, especially our angry words. I don't need to prove any of this to you from the Bible. You know this is taught in the scriptures. These are just obvious reasons why we have our tongue. And the reason why we need to remember that constantly is because if we are not doing the things that are the obvious reasons why God has given us this tongue, then we are doing something wrong. We are either falling short of what his purpose for the tongue is, or we are doing things with our tongue that he never ordained. Either way, sins of omission, sins of commission, it's against God himself. And that applies to anything that God has given us. Did God give us food in order that we can worship food in our belly? No, if we were to do that, we're using something he's given to us in a way that is contrary to what he has ordained. And the same thing is true with our tongue. Why did he give it to us? Let us get in line with his purpose. Now, as you can see, that's going to have to require us to vet, to do some profiling. of our words before we let them come out of our minds and into our mouths. The second question by way of application is this, in what ways do we sin with our tongue? Answer, in many ways, in innumerable ways. And if you were to do a study in scripture and look up all of the things, whether it's by way of precept, observations as they are in Proverbs, or examples, bad and good, You would see all over in the epistles, Jesus' own teaching in the gospels, you would see that there are a plethora of ways in which we sin with our tongues. Sometimes we sin by not saying anything. Most of the time we sin by saying something we shouldn't have. I'm reminded of what John MacArthur calls Peter the Apostle. Pre-Pentecost Peter, he was the apostle with the foot-shaped mouth. He was always saying something he should not have said and had to put his foot in his mouth. Or Jesus inserted the foot himself in Peter's mouth by rather sharp rebukes. But think about all the ways in which we sin. Maybe it'd be helpful to categorize those sins. Words that are sinful in themselves is one way we sin with words. Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe that there actually are sinful words. I think there are sinful people who use words to sin. So I'm not going down that road where, who killed that person? The gun! No, a person used that gun to kill that person. It wasn't the gun's fault, it's the person's fault. So I'm not saying that words in and of themselves are sinful. And as Pastor Tom Lyon used to say, there's really only one bad word in the English language. It's the word bad. Words in and of themselves. I remember Pastor Downing saying one time in a sermon that he overheard his sons fighting over some toy or something that they were doing. And he heard one of his sons say to his other brother, You, you, you, and he was trying to think of a really nasty word. He said, you carburetor. And it's a good thing that he didn't use a socially unacceptable word, but he was still disciplined because he could have just as well used a socially unacceptable word or carburetor because the issue is not the word. The issue is where the word is coming from, the anger behind it, what's in the heart. Nevertheless, words that we know in our own particular culture are unprofitable and lead people to think of sinful thoughts. You know what I'm talking about. Four letter words and beyond. These are not appropriate for communication. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, Ephesians 4.29. Think of another category of sinful words, or how we sin with our words. Words that are sinful in their design. Words that we use that are sinful in our very design of them. Think about all that the Bible says about flattery. God will cut off the flatterer's lips. Flattery and complimenting someone are two different things, and I hope that you all understand that. Encouraging someone. giving credit where credit is due, honor to whom honor is due, showing the person appreciation for how you've benefited from what they've said or what they've done, that is not flattery. Flattery is when you have ulterior motives for your compliments and your praise, when you're trying to manipulate the situation or the person. to accomplish something. In other words, it's not so much a compliment or an encouragement from you, it's a scheme, it's an agenda that you have and you're just using and hoping that person is egotistical enough to take the lovely sounding words and be putty in your hands. That's flattery and God hates it. And then of course, there's boasting. the design of words to boast. Some people are more clever at this, some are more obvious. Some people boast in a very, oh by the way, kind of thing, and others blow their trumpet and say, da da da da, this is what I did. Some people design their words to deceive. Sometimes it's outright lying, concealing. giving inaccurate impressions, exaggerating, overstating, embellishing, that's deception. Unless, of course, everyone knows you're telling a joke and it's all fun and games and so on. But if you are purposely deceiving, you're designing to sin with your words, to detract. to detract from someone's reputation or character by saying a little snide remark here, a little snide remark there, which you knowingly has a barb in it because it's going to draw that person back to say, well, what did you mean by that? And then the rumor mill begins, gossip. to entrap someone like the Pharisees did with Jesus. This was an evil design for their words, and of course I love reading the Gospels because Jesus foils them every single time, outwits them like no one else could have ever done, of course, because he knew their hearts, too. But don't you be like that, catching someone up, trying to trip them up, trying to bait them. Sometimes we use our words to attack. That's a design which is sinful, and I've already mentioned it. It destroys. It may not actually kill a person physically, but it kills them inside. And it causes them to feel hurt and wounded. And sometimes words that you have spoken to somebody are wounds and that leave scars that never go away for the rest of that person's life. And as much as you may have even asked for forgiveness and changed your ways, they still go on with that memory of those wounds, which can be more painful to people than physical affliction. Well, there's a category then of words in their design. There's another category, words, and this might surprise you, there's ways we sin with our tongue because we use words that are sinful in their lack of design. And what I mean by this is the belitherer, the person who's always talking, talking, talking, talking, and you can tell that if they're doing all that talking, they must not be doing very much thinking. Because how do they have time to think if they're always talking? And Jesus said, every vain, foolish, empty, good for nothing, thoughtless, careless word will be judged. As I said before, we are accountable for our words. We're accountable for the ones where we design actually to sin with them, or even just off the cuff sin, and we realize it after we've done it. Or there are times when we just simply talk too much, and we have no design. That's called emptiness, vanity. Now don't take that too far. I've known some young Christians who are newly converted who decided that when they go to work and they get on the elevator, they're no longer going to have any small talk with anybody because it's just vanity. And if you do talk about the weather, that's vanity. Who are those false prophets, those meteorologists anyway? Well, listen, small talk is a form of being polite, which is a form of loving your neighbor. I'm not talking about that kind of thing. We're talking about that blithering thing that you just love to talk and as one man said, many people would be more truthful were it not for their uncontrollable desire to talk. So these are categories. Things that are sinful in themselves, words, words that are sinful in their design, words that are sinful by their lack of design. In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin, the Bible says. And the Bible also says that we are to study to be quiet, that we're to be quick to listen and slow to speak. By the way, have you ever noticed you have one tongue but you have two ears? Two ears, one tongue. Twice as much listening as talking at the very least. Okay, so now in the time that we do have, let's ask the final question of application. How may we govern our tongue? I want to just throw out for you in bullet point fashion, as I said before in machine gun fashion, directions to help us govern and control our tongue. We must do all we can to mortify the deeds of the flesh, and one of those deeds is how we speak and communicate, whether it's by our tongue or through our fingertips on a keyboard or on a telephone. We have to mortify the deeds of the flesh. You might think, well, why? I'm safe and secure in Jesus Christ. There's no condemnation for me. He paid for all my sins. So why can't I just sin freely and not be so strict about my mouth and what comes out of it? If you have that attitude, then you need to read Romans 6. Shall we sin that grace may abound? What does Paul say about that? If you're a new creature who's been raised on the newness of life, you shouldn't even be thinking that way. A new creature doesn't think that way. A new creature in Christ meditating upon the work of Christ and the person of Christ wants to do the will of Christ and be like Christ. And that is what we strive for. We're not trying to earn our salvation by doing these things, but we want to show our love and service to the one who has obtained our salvation for us. We want to be influential in the world. Loving our great Redeemer, loving our neighbor. Having a good impact, leaving behind a good footprint when we leave this world. Something useful, something edifying, something profitable. And that's why we give these directions. Okay, you ready? If you're taking notes, forget it. Just listen to it on sermon audio and you can go back over it. It would be too difficult for you, unless you know shorthand. How may we better govern our tongue? Well, first of all, by constantly reminding ourselves that our tongues are not our own. Nothing you are or have is your own. Everything you are and everything you have has been given to you by the Lord and the Lord owns you. He owns you by virtue of his creation of you. He owns you by virtue of his redeeming of you, and as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 6, even our bodies that are indwelt by the Holy Spirit are his temple. We are owned even by that aspect. The full Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit own us and everything in us, and our members, as we read in Romans 6, are to be used. Our tongues are one of our members for righteousness, in servitude, the gracious servitude whose wages is eternal life, but the gracious servitude of our master Jesus Christ. We do not belong to ourselves. Secondly, by seriously considering the omniscient surveillance of God and our accountability to him for every word we speak, He sees everything, he hears everything. In Psalm 73, Asaph was saying, the wicked, they sin with their mouths all the time, and they basically say, who shall hear us? Does God even care? The deistic, or even worse, practical atheistic way of living, where we don't think God cares. God cares, and he sees, and he knows what you said, even if you said it under your breath. Thirdly, by holding ourselves accountable, like the psalmist did, Psalm 39.1. I said, I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue. I mentioned the fact that we have two ears and one tongue. Did you notice also that for most of us, I hope most of us, have a set of teeth? There's a cage. around our tongues. Symbolic, huh? I think it's more than symbolic. It just shows once again how that tongue needs to be doubly, doubly, triply secured, double guard as the book of Proverbs talks about it. Richard Baxter said, call your tongues daily to account and ask yourselves what evil you have spoken and what good you have omitted every day. Be humbled before God in the penitent confession of the sin which you discover and renew your resolution for a stricter watch for the time to come. Fourthly, how can we govern our tongues? By being mindful that the tongue reveals our character. As Thomas Brooks the Puritan said, what is in the well will be in the bucket. The well of your heart poured out through your tongue will be revealing to everyone what's really there. Eventually, hypocrites can say a lot of beautiful sounding things, but eventually their tongues will reveal what's in their heart. That's why so much that's on the internet today is putrid. because everybody can anonymously reveal the filth and the cesspool of nonsense and degradation and share it with the whole world. It can be used for a tool for good, but by and large, it's just basically everybody revealing what's in their hearts and it's pretty ugly. But be mindful that your tongue reveals your character. Fifthly, by continually remembering the true purpose of our speech, why did God give you a tongue? Start using it for those reasons. Ministering to others, carrying on the business of life, praising God. Those of you who come to church and never open your mouth to sing the praises of God, are you even a Christian? Well, you might have a cold, okay. You might have a bad voice, that doesn't matter. Let all that has breath sing his praises. While I can't sing very well, it's going to sound like a noise. Make a joyful noise then to the Lord. Use that tongue in prayer and communion with God. Use it to minister to others, to evangelize others. Reflect upon Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as you do these things so that you will have that motivation to use that tongue in the way he had created it for you. And then we also could add to this list by cultivating silence, study to be quiet, Paul says, 1 Thessalonians 4.11, and to do your own business and to work with your own hands. One person said, one of the first things that happens when a man is really filled with the spirit is not that he speaks with tongues, but that he learns to hold the one tongue he already has. Another thing to add to the list, by asking ourselves the following questions before we speak. Are these words true? Are these words edifying? Are these words timely? Are these words proportionate? As Proverbs says, a fool utters all his mind, but a wise man keeps it in till afterwards. By filling our minds with that which ought to be upon our lips. Our minds need to be renewed. Our hearts filled with whatsoever is good and lovely, good report. So that out of that well will come forth words that are profitable and also honoring to God. By governing our passions. How many times have you said things that are hurtful to other people because you got angry? So the real issue, at least the root issue, is your anger issue, right? Mortify that. Get busy working on the root problem here. Why are you angry? Is it because you're just selfish and you don't know anything about self-denial and loving others and not always getting your way and you're just responding? Work on that area. When you work on your passions, you then will be able to control your tongue in those moments of provocation better. You'll be able to control it better. Don't wait until the provocation to do anything about your anger because oftentimes we sin. precisely because we've left our passions go unmortified. And then I'll just leave you with one more. By earnestly praying for God's enabling grace. Earnestly praying for God's enabling grace. As the psalmist said in Psalm 1914, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, see those two go together because one leads to the other, be acceptable to thee, O God. O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. If we think of God as our rock, that is our hope and protection from the wrath to come, and from any ultimate harm or danger, and if we think of Him as our Redeemer in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, Far from that, giving to us the mindset that we can say anything we want and nothing really matters because I'm eternally secure. No, the psalmist shows us that those considerations were the very thing that caused him to cry out to God that the words of his mouth would be acceptable to him. And so let us remember as we seek to mortify our speech, we will be discovering more and more how sinful we are, and you probably don't even, you haven't even scratched the surface. But that's not a terrible thing, because immediately as you see more sin in your life, you're remembering automatically, you should be, of how great a Savior you have. Your rock and your Redeemer has redeemed you from that, And he has in his own flesh spoken perfectly on your behalf and paid for every vain idle word or evil word that you've ever spoken or will speak. That will be the fuel and the motivation to speak in ways that honor him and love our neighbor. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for this time in your word. when we pray that it would be profitable, not just for today, but for the entire year. May you, by your grace, protect us, protect our homes, our marriages, our relationships, and this local church, we pray. Not so much from the outside world, but from ourselves and our own tongues, for we know the church is a fragile thing. and any one of us has within us the ability to start a great fire. Help us to remember to guard our tongues and help our motives to be that which springs from our love for our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, who lived for us, and who makes intercession for us even now. And it's in his name we pray, amen.