The Tongue | Tim Bollinger

The tongue is a small part of the body, but our words carry tremendous power. The Bible offers practical wisdom for speaking words that are loving, truthful, and helpful to those around us.

Transcript

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Hi, and thank you for listening to this message from Shepherd's Gate Church, located in Kelby Township, Michigan. To learn more about Shepherd's Gate and to access more content, visit FGCurch.org.

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God is good, isn't he? I mean, just think one week ago we were all out on that West Lawn. If you were here for our outdoor Father's Day service, and what an amazing turnout. God once again blessed us with incredible weather, even though the weather was supposed to rain just like on Step Out and Serve weekend. But yet God in his grace and his mercy allowed us to just have a wonderful time gathering as a church family. And we recognize that some of you, you may be here this morning because you were invited to the outdoor service, and so you came back this week maybe to check us out and learn a little bit more about who we are and uh how we do ministry here at Shepherd's Gate. So we're so glad that you're here. In fact, one of the challenges that we give people is to come for three weeks. So if you came last week and you came this week, guess what? You only got one more week to do and to pray about and see about if God would have you call this your home. And one of the things that we love to do, you just heard it uh with Brant's installation, you heard it with the new members, is open God's word. We believe that God's word is what has the power to change and transform our lives. And so we're not afraid to dig into scripture, to allow scripture to do what God tells us it does, which is teach us. Everybody's good with that. Correct us. Okay, we've got a couple more. Rebuke us when we need to be rebuked, and then train us in righteousness. And righteousness is when we stand right before our God. And we'll talk a little bit more about that later in the message. Uh, if I haven't had a chance to meet you, my name's Tim. I get the privilege of being uh one of the pastors here with Eric that you just met a few moments ago. And normally I'm available after the service on the West Lobby. It's like my favorite place to be. Uh, but believe it or not, I'm actually going with Brant and Eric up to Mackinac Island with the senior high students. So Eric and I signed up to be chaperones because we didn't know if we were gonna have a student director. Um I actually haven't done student ministry in 15 years. That's how long it's been since I uh have been doing other roles around here at Shepherd's Gate. Uh so I'm taking my ninth grader, I guess he's a tenth grader now, son and his friends. So they're actually already, they already are in their vehicles and they're on their way up, and so we'll meet them up there. But listen to this this is all the churches within our tribe, uh the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in Michigan. So there's gonna be over 800 kids on Mackinac Island. Does anybody want to go with me? Anybody want you do want to go with me? All right. Trying to figure out if it's if it's gonna turn into Alcatraz this week or not, but it's gonna be an awesome time. Pray for us. We come back on Wednesday. So again, I'll be I'll be taking off right after uh the our closing song today. Uh but I do get to kick off our new sermon series for the next three weeks called Little Things. And uh we designed this series to kind of look at those areas of our lives that maybe we need to be challenged in. That maybe there are some areas that that sometimes it's uncomfortable, sometimes we don't want to talk about it, but at the end of the day, it's actually for our good, and it's good for us to look at these scriptures, and it's good for us to look at our lives and to say, God, would you convict us? Would you call out those areas of our lives that maybe we're not living up to our full potential as followers of you? Does that sound good? Okay, good, because today we're gonna be talking about the tongue. Not one amen in the room. Alright, today we're talking about the tongue, next week the seed, the third week, the gift. So let me start this way. Why is it that something small small can be so powerful? Why is that? It's amazing if we just think about our tongues for a moment. In fact, one of the wisest men that ever lived, Solomon, he wrote these words the tongue has the power of life and death. Do you agree? That you and I have the ability to speak truth into people, and do words of encouragement into people, but we also have the ability to destroy somebody else or somebody else's reputation just by what comes out of our mouths. I'm fascinated by the tongue because I learned this week that tongues are just as unique as fingerprints. Every person's tongue on the planet is unique to that individual. Think about that for a moment. Think about that in view of your relationship with the Lord. There's eight muscles, there's 10,000 taste buds, you speak anywhere from 12 to 15,000 words a day that can fill up a 50-page book. And if you were to put all of those words within the course of a year, it would be four million pages in words, which is insane, is it not? Would any of you want to read a book of every word that you said in one year? Like just go back and see everything that you said? I mean, it seems so overwhelming when you start digging into some of these stats and how important words are in our lives. I think we all agree that words matter. And it's not just what you say, it's what you read, it's what you watch, it's what you listen to. And so whether that's the television or the newspaper, anybody still read the newspaper? Or the thing that I love to hate, social media. Anybody scroll their Facebook this morning already? And do you ever notice that we live in a society where most of the news that we consume now or the information is not positive? And all of this information is being downloaded into our lives, and yet so often that seems to be what gets manifested out of us because it's garbage in. Hold on to that thought. Jesus, when he was in a conversation, really kind of a debate with some religious leaders that didn't believe he was the Son of God and didn't really accept his teachings, got to a point in the conversation where he simply said these words, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Which is interesting because we like to say this phrase a lot. You need to think before you. Can you say that with me? There are three sides. You know why? Because you're a sinner. And so am I. And the only person that actually knows the truth is God. And no matter what the circumstance or the situation, the natural sinful human uh inclination is to always bend it to your side. And so if you talk to one person and they're in a situation, they're gonna bend it towards their side. And if you talk to somebody else, they're gonna bend it toward their side. Very, very few times will you ever find somebody that is caught in a sin or caught in a lie where they'll actually come forward and say, you know what, the other person is 100% correct. I am 100% wrong in this situation. We don't know how to do that. We love to defend ourselves and we love to use the word, but you don't understand. But you don't know what they said or did to me. James put it this way in his letter. He said, Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing, my brothers and sisters. This shouldn't be. And he writes this to the church. He's trying to encourage and motivate the church. We just sang some beautiful worship songs, didn't we? And this guy over here with these really cool instruments, I don't even know what they're all called. I know one of them is a violin. I mean, that was really cool to have that this morning, wasn't it? He drove a long way to be here. I'm so glad that we were able to include that this morning. But I can tell you this on my way in, I was taking my time, praying, kind of going through my notes in my mind because I don't have a manuscript, I don't have notes in front of me other than what's on the screen. And wouldn't you know that someone decided to come up and tailgate me? And I've told you guys before, one one of the things that I really struggle with are people that tailgate. I don't understand them. I think they should have their licenses revoked for like 10 years. Like if you get caught tailgating. And for those of you that have pickup trucks, I'm sorry. I don't know why sometimes pickup trucks think they need to be the bullies of the road. And so here it is, 7 a.m. this morning. There is a big pickup truck behind me, basically kissing my bumper. And while I'm going over the sermon that I'm supposed to preach you, I'll give you one guess what came out of my mouth. Now I get his frustration because we were supposed to be going 50 miles an hour, and instead of going 50, we were going 38. And it wasn't because I was just so caught up in my sermon notes in my head, it was because the car in front of me was going 38 miles an hour. And he began, I'm not joking, to swerve in and out. He was trying to look around me as if he was going to pass, and my arms are going up, and I'm screaming, even though he can't hear me. I'm screaming, like, dude, settle down, settle down. Then I took a right turn and came to Shepherd's Gate. And I said, I don't want to have to preach this sermon this morning. And he started tailgating the car that was causing the whole thing to begin with. So the first thing out of my mouth this morning was cursing, and then I came here and praised God. And yet we get caught in this trap all the time, don't we? For us, kind of goes back to the Old Testament. God gave us some rules on how best to live our lives, and he gave us these things called the Ten Commandments. In fact, one of them, he said this, you shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. Which, if you didn't know, neighbor means anyone else on the planet that's a human being, that's breathing and functioning. Well, what does false testimony mean? Lies. And that's it. Just don't lie. We'll all just be better at not lying? And this is what I love about our church body and the way that we approach scripture is that we dig deeper in this and we actually have an explanation for this. This is actually the eighth commandment, and so the eighth commandment explanation says this we should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor. But there's more. Not only should we not lie about them, we shouldn't betray them, or slander them, or hurt their reputation. Really quiet in here. How are we doing with this, folks? How difficult is it to go past, well, I didn't lie, I didn't say anything that wasn't true. But now you want me to not betray, slander, or hurt their reputation. And then here's the amazing part. It actually tells you what to do. You are to defend them and to speak well of them. And every opportunity you have to be sucked into a conversation that's full of gossip, you flip that conversation around and instead you say things in the kindest way about that person. How many of you know somebody that's got this figured out? Any mentors in your life? Any people that you know, they're just they just don't gossip. They don't talk bad about people. They they carry themselves with such character and integrity. And I can tell you the reason they carry themselves with such character and integrity is because of the work of the Holy Spirit that they have yielded to in their lives. It's easy to be a gossip, it's easy to slander people. It's easy to get caught up in the ways of the world, especially when all of the external factors that we feed into ourselves are so often negative. And then, because of the fact that we carry around a sinful nature in our hearts, and those two things make a recipe for disaster in our lives. Instead, this is what we should do. Watch what comes out of our mouths. And don't let any unwholesome talk flow from our lips. Instead, why don't we use the time that we have and the voice that we have to build others up according to their needs? Isn't that awesome? That you and I can be agents for God to find people that are hurting, to find people that are down on life and to go and to speak into them and to help them and to encourage them and to lift them up. Amen. Here's the reality, and this is the truth of the law, is that spreading a true secret to harm someone's name, it's actually still a sin in this commandment. If you find out some juicy gossip and you find something out that you know is for fact 100% true, and you share it with somebody for no other reason and to share it with them to ruin that person's reputation, you have in fact sinned. In fact, listen to this. When you hear, when you hear of someone's private sin, this is what you are to do. You are to turn your ears into a tomb and bury it. How's that sound? Guess who said this? Anybody know who said this? Somebody said it. Martin Luther. 1500s. He's the one that wrote the explanations for the small catechism, which explains the commandments and what we teach our kids here at Shepherd's Gate. And yet it's so easy to forget about these things. It's full so easy to fall into the trap of just living like everybody else and talking like everybody else. Which, side note, when you get to a certain age, do the rules not apply to you anymore? Like if you turn 60, can you just say whatever you want from now on? What about 70? Anyone 80? How about 90? If you make it to 90, then you don't need a filter anymore. You just blast away. I have studied the scriptures and I have never found a release for any person for any reason. In fact, we all live under the same law of God. James, which is what we're going to look at together this morning, said this as he kicks off his book. He said, Those who consider themselves religious and don't know how to keep a tight rein on their tongue, they're actually deceiving themselves. They're lying to themselves, and their testimony about who Christ is, their religion, the fact that they're a follower of Jesus, is actually completely worthless. It's hard to hear, isn't it? And maybe today, this sermon and being here today, or you're watching online, this is God shaking you and waking you up and saying, Man, I have a better way for you. I have something more in store for you. In fact, all this negativity that flows out of your life and out of your mouth, it's not good for you. And I want to come and break you of that tongue and that deceitfulness that's been going on far too long in your heart and in your life. What's so interesting is that James devotes a whole chapter to it. James chapter 3. He starts off this way not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers. So he's talking to the church, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. Do you agree or disagree? I don't like this verse. Why do I have to be judged more strictly than you? Do you think there's a higher calling on my life? Should I be held to a different standard than you? Should I be very careful with the words that come out of my mouth, not just here on Sunday morning when I preach, but how I live my life out of here? And so my life should model the Christian life as God, the Holy Spirit, gives me the ability to do that. And trust me, I'm far from perfect. My wife's actually at the service. She'll take appointments after the service if you want. She'll tell you all about the struggles that we have at home and things that I've had to learn over time to soften my words and to be more patient and understanding and not be so aggressive or demanding. All of us have room to grow in this area. He goes on to say this we all stumble in many ways, which I'm so thankful because he levels the playing field. Okay, we all know we're all sinners, we all have things that we struggle with. If anyone is never at fault in what they say, they're perfect, they're able to keep their whole body in check. Anyone perfect this morning? Anybody got this down? Nobody at nine either, so I get alright, so we're two for two. And then this is really interesting. He gives you all these like real examples of how to make sure that you don't have these areas in your life. He says this, we but when we put bits in the mouth of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. And I know some of you, you have horses. You raise horses. Or this take ships, all of you cruisers out there. They're so large and they are driven by strong winds and are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants it to go. Small piece of the boat. Huge vessel. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boast. It boasts itself up. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. Are you starting to get what he's saying? Like, all right, we're three into this. I think we got it, James. Nope, he's got more for us. The tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by what? Hell. Your tongue can set your life on fire and send you to hell. That's how seriously God takes the words that flow from your lips and mine. And just when you think that he's doubled down, tripled down on all of this, he says these words. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, sea creatures, are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. You know, this guy's the half-brother of Jesus, right? He's not a very encouraging writer, is he? Oh, let's flip over to Philippians. That book seems a little more cheery to me, Tim. Let's go read a different portion of scripture. Maybe that's what we need to hear this morning. And then the grand finale, and this is what I read to you at the beginning, is when he says, when the tongue has the ability to praise our Lord and Father, and with it it also has the ability to curse human beings created in the image of God. That again, out of the same mouth, comes praise and cursing and cursing. And he's pleading with the church as God is pleading with us today, this should not be. Shouldn't be. We are the body of Christ. We are Shepherd's Gate Church. We should watch what we say, how we say it, and what we say about people. And when we do that and we live under that reality, when we are out in the community and we're with the unbelieving world and we're with our families, they will take notice that we live our lives differently. And we live our lives differently in the fact that we are submitted to the will of the Father. And what it is that he wants us to do with the time that we have on this earth, including the words that come out of our mouths. Amen? Now it's a lot about the tongue, it's a lot about words. Does it also apply to text messaging? Ask him for a friend. What about emails? Are we allowed to be nasty when we send emails? What about social media? I mean, people just used to post kittens and puppies and recipes. And now it's one of the most toxic platforms ever invented by mankind. And the people at the top are making billions and billions and billions of dollars off people lying and slandering each other inside and outside the church. Sad, isn't it? Thinking about this. If it does apply to the things that we type, could it be possible that it's not just our tongues, but our thumbs and our fingers that get us in trouble? How about this? What about if people give you the silent treatment? Instead of talking, they refuse to talk to you or they ignore you. But it goes on for weeks and months and years. Talking to some people last week at the outdoor Father's Day service because their whole family wasn't here because of words that have been exchanged. And so because of words that have been exchanged, they refuse to be together for Father's Day. What about in other areas of our lives? Private messaging. So we're in a group chat and we don't like the way the group chat's going, so we'll just take ourselves out of that and we'll start a separate group chat, and how quickly that turns into slander. What's your feelings on sarcasm? Because I'm pretty sarcastic. Is it good or bad? And should you be able to say whatever you want if you're just kidding, if you're just teasing? Like at what point do you know that you've crossed the line? Again, I missed the day when Facebook first came out. Number one, first, in order to have a Facebook, you used to have to have a college email address. You used to have to have uh dot edu at the end, and then it opened up to the whole world. So imagine it just started with college kids. And the only thing you could do was like a comment. How many want to go back to that day? Now you can put a laughing emoji, you can mock people, you can put a sad emoji, you can put that. You're angry at what somebody else posted on social media. All the feelings are now included. How about the passive-aggressive comments? Anybody see this? Like the people, you know the people really good at talking cryptically? And so they'll write something and then somebody else writes something back, or they'll go down on social media and they'll find something that's like four and five and six and seven layers down, and they'll start liking and hearting things, and you're like, ooh, man, this is getting good. I'm gonna put a reminder on here so I can come back tomorrow and see who else is beating each other up on social media. Instead of having face-to-face conversations the way that God designed us and called us to have. Finally, this one. Victim response. People that are in a perpetual state of always being a victim. So everything that they say and everything that they post is all about them. And what happens is this good-natured people, usually the people that have the social worker personalities that God has given them, always want to come to their rescue. You know what we call that? Those are enablers that are being abused by people that can't get out of the victim mentality that they have put themselves in. Maybe, just maybe they're in the situation that they're in because they put themselves there. And again, if we didn't have social media and we didn't have some of the other things that we have, we wouldn't, it wouldn't be played out the way that it is. And yet God says, I want to put a hedge of protection around my church. I want to put a hedge of protection around your marriage, I want to put a hedge of protection around your family. Now follow me because we're about to start the month of July, and I have this crazy idea. You guys know I'm good for crazy ideas. What if we all stop listening and watching the news and we all hold on, and we all go off social media for an entire month. What would we do? I thought you'd find out how much time you actually have in the day. Let me put it this way. My life's goal, I this is one of my favorite pictures I'm about to show you. My life's goal is to be this woman in this picture. You ready for this? This is who I want to be. This is who I look up to. I'm crazy enough to think that sometimes we actually, as followers of Jesus, don't realize how toxic the world is around us. And sometimes we actually need to take the steps to detox. If you wake up every day and you are crabby and negative, what are the external factors that are leading you to be crabby and negative every single morning you wake up? Maybe the worst thing you can do when you wake up in the morning is grab your phone and scroll, or grab your phone and read the news. Imagine this with me that instead of going to the television and going to the cell phone, you go and you pick up a book. Bible's always a good idea. And you open the book and you go outside with your cup of coffee or your cup of tea or whatever it is, and you breathe in fresh air, and you don't allow an electronic device to speak into you for a day or a week or maybe even a whole month. How many of you think maybe you could do this? How many of you would be open to doing something crazy like this? And I know because some of you are wondering, what do we do when we're attacked or you're criticized or you're misrepresented or you're slandered? This is like next level uh stuff with Jesus. I'm telling you, these are some of the hardest spiritual disciplines to figure out in your life. Jesus said if they persecuted me, they're gonna persecute you. Realize that as you speak the truth or you live counterculture or you tell people I'm not gonna engage in those conversations or those side conversations, it can be difficult, but it can be done. Jesus also told us to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us. That guy this morning in that pickup truck, after I took that right turn toward Shepherd's Gate, I knew I was gonna have to preach this sermon. And I said, God, would you bless him? Would you help him in wherever he's going in a hurry at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning? Would you help him arrive safely? And if he doesn't know you, would you put people in his life that would help him to know Jesus? And do you know what this 9 o'clock service said to me? Tim, that was probably another pastor trying to get to his church. Now that's sarcasm that I didn't create. I was like, maybe it is. All I know is that God was doing a work in me to flip the script and to flip the narrative around. Here's one of the other crazy things that Jesus did. He's being insulted, he's being dragged all over Jerusalem. Finally bring him to Pilate, and this is the guy that has the power to actually send him to the cross. And as these accusations are coming at him from every angle, he does not respond. He makes no reply, not even to a single charge. In fact, Peter tells us this is that he's the one that committed no sin. No deceit in his lips or in his mouth. And even as they even as they hurled these things upon him, he did not retaliate. Which I think is one of the hardest things to do is to stand and to be quiet. To stand and to not share. To stand and to not feel like you have to retaliate. And let God fight your battles for you. You be a man or woman with character, you be a man or woman with integrity. It starts in the heart and what flows from our lips. Here's the good news for you and for me as we prepare to receive Holy Communion this morning. God's the one that made Jesus sin to be sin for us, the one that had no sin. And he took our sins, not just the acts that we've done, but also the words that have so freely flown from our lips, the accusations that we've made, the times that we've manipulated people, the times that we've ignored people, the times that we have hurt people. And somehow God in his grace and his mercy heard those things hanging on a cross. I want you to think about this. Jesus is hanging on the cross, and people in real time are mocking him. And as he's hanging on the cross, all of our sins and words are also placed upon his body, in his heart and in his soul. And he gladly did that for you and for me because he knew we had screwed up. He knew that we would need him, and the only way for us to get that cleansing and that healing and that wholeness is to cling to the cross and the work that Jesus has done for us. And what's so fascinating about what we are about to do as a church is how do we receive communion? How do we receive communion? Jesus could have picked anything else on the planet to use for us to remember his death and resurrection. And yet this is the mode and method by which he has freely given us that forgiveness would pass through our tongues and that we would know how good and gracious our God is.

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